Release
Les Vampires was serialised French cinemas as ten episodes of differing length, the first two appearing on 13 November 1915 and the last on 30 June 1916. The film was first shown in Mexico on 24 May 1917 and made its début in the USA at the 1965 New York Film Festival.
Despite World War I limiting the audience for the film (unlike Feuillade's earlier work Fantômas) it was a huge success in France, massively outshining the original competition from Pathé and the serial The Mysteries of New York. Much of the films success is said to have been from the inclusion of Musidora as the antagonist Irma Vep, who fitted well with the archetypes of 'vamp' and 'femme fatale', often being compared to Theda Bara. The police force, however, condemned the series for its apparent glorification of crime and dubious morality. Some of the episodes were temporarily banned, but these bans were retracted after a personal appeal from Musidora.
A 7-volume novelization of Les Vampires by Feuillade and George Meirs was published in 1916 by Tallandier (as 4 paperbacks followed by 3 magazine-size issues).
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Famous quotes containing the word release:
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)