There’s a masterpiece buried in this otherwise awful Edgar Allan Poe anthology film
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Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: Antlers, a horror movie adapted from a story by Nick Antosca, is not hitting theaters. In its absence, we’re looking back on other movies based on short stories.
Spirits Of The Dead (1968)
Though it was conceived by the producer Alberto Grimaldi as a way to cash in on the ’60s Italian craze for multi-director omnibus films, the popularity of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe movies, and the mass appeal of bare breasts and fake blood, Spirits Of The Dead ended up producing a near-masterpiece in Federico Fellini’s “Toby Dammit.” It remains one of the most grotesque films to ever pass itself off as a Poe adaptation—a death trip of studio fakery, cartoon satire, and paranoia in which an alcoholic English actor (Terrence Stamp) is lured to Italy to star in the world’s first “Catholic Western” in exchange for a gold Ferrari. Looking like a goth vampire (or a caricature of Poe, complete with 19th-century fashion sense and self-destructive drinking), he is led from one scene of delirium into the next. There are movie lights on the street corners, people are being replaced by mannequins and cardboard standees, and a creepy childlike blonde that only he can see won’t leave him alone.
The whole Fellini circus has come to town: the traffic jams, the paparazzi, the bizarre Catholic imagery, the blatantly phony sets. Finally, Toby Dammit takes off behind the wheel of his Ferrari (in a sequence made all the more thrilling by the fact that Stamp is clearly doing a lot of his own driving), racing around darkened roads and up and down medieval streets before he meets his fate. We are left wondering what it all means. Whatever it is, there’s a lot of it crammed into just 45 minutes. But though “Toby Dammit” is a lot more Fellini than Poe (the only plot points it retains from its source material, “Never Bet The Devil Your Head,” are the climactic decapitation and the name of the main character), it seems to grasp something about the author that’s missing from most Poe adaptations. Poe was a brooding romantic—but he was also a smartass and a notoriously caustic critic, fond of hoaxes and spoofs and distrustful of literary fads.
Of course, there is no shortage of cosmetically faithful Poe adaptations out there, and Spirits Of The Dead happens to include two very bad examples of the form. Both are tasteless in ways that are lazy and unexciting, though it is nonetheless a critic’s duty to acknowledge their existence. The first, directed by Roger Vadim, is a gender-swapped take on Poe’s first published story, “Metzengerstein,” a pseudo-Gothic tale about rich aristocrats, blood feuds, and reincarnation. It stars Jane Fonda in an assortment of Barbarella-ized costumes and is indifferently made and deathly boring. Modern viewers may be surprised to learn that Vadim was once considered to be an extremely erotic filmmaker. The second, directed by Louis Malle, is an absolutely awful adaptation of one of Poe’s finest stories, “William Wilson,” about a man whose attempts to lead a life of sin and debauchery are constantly sabotaged by a doppelgänger who has followed him since boyhood. It features Alain Delon, an attempted gang rape in an operating theater, and an appearance by Brigitte Bardot in a very cheap black wig. Malle later said he made it strictly for the money, but that’s no excuse.
If Malle’s “William Wilson” is a textbook case of an adaptation that completely misses the point, then “Toby Dammit” is something like the opposite: an extremely loose interpretation that’s faithful to the spirit of the text. Its source, “Never Bet The Devil Your Head,” is a howling send-up of the idea that short stories are supposed to have a moral point, filled with jokes about transcendentalism, homoeopathy, various mid-19th century publications, and the era’s American literary scene. The plot of “Toby Dammit” is in turn an elaborate in-joke about omnibus movies and the star-chasing Italian film industry, riffing on the fact that Clint Eastwood had actually been enticed into appearing in a previous omnibus project, The Witches, with his choice of cash or a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB. (According to Richard Schickel’s Clint Eastwood: A Biography, Eastwood picked the car because his agent couldn’t take a percentage of a Ferrari.)
It even nails Poe’s parody of his era’s pretensions, with characters who prattle on about a film “about Christ’s return to the desolate prairie” that promises “something between Dreyer and Pasolini with just a hint of John Ford.” The major difference is that Fellini’s Toby Dammit is a tragic figure—a lush who keeps moaning about his promised Ferrari to a vacuous nightmare-world of airport terminals, TV studios, and awards ceremonies. He is destined to an awesomely meaningless demise.
Availability: “Toby Dammit” is available on the Criterion Channel, where it can be streamed separately or as a part of Spirits Of The Dead.
27 Comments
Toby Dammit is indeed brilliant, the other two segments probably don’t have a whole lot of artistic worth… but I can kind of get the Vadim erotic thing, purely on the strength of Jane Fonda’s wicked countess. I don’t know if it’s good acting, but christ she gave me the horn
Well this all sounds fascinating and I’m a bit of a sucker for filmed Poe but I’m steering clear of this one. 1968 was the year that far too many of that decades worst cinematic excesses came home to roost and with Vadim involved to boot that’s all I need to know. Even Hammer started going south around this time. You do have to admire Stamp’s work ethic, though. He seems to be one of those actors like Michael Caine who never turned down a gig because you never know when the work is going to dry up.The most bizarre Poe I’ve ever seen remains the 1949 version of “The Fall of the House of Usher” by British Ed Wood predecessor Ivan Barnett. It evokes a hermetically sealed little world of bizarreness so thoroughly all its own (one of the characters is a living shrunken head) I actually found myself feeling like I had hallucinated it.
You’ve probably seen this, a British short version of The Black Cat by Rob Green. Very effective and made on very little money. it was also as far as I can tell the last film to be released as a short with a main feature in British cinemas, by Sony I believe. The Masters Of Horror version by the late Stuart Gordon is also very good.
The Vadim segment doesn’t star just one Fonda, but two: Peter is the male lead whom Jane is supposed to be lusting after. Per wikipedia, their characters are supposed to be cousins (like Poe and his actual wife) rather than siblings.
As far as I can recall, the movie never makes it clear that they’re supposed to be anything other than siblings.
Wikipedia says cousins, and IIRC so does the movie–I remember thinking that the movie managed to justify the Fonda-Fonda resemblance without being *too* gross.
Either way, Vadim knew exactly what he was doing…
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I feel about Toby Dammit the way I felt about Tony Takitani when it seemed like people weren’t able to really film the spirit of a Murakami film. Of course since then there have been other excellent Murakami films, but I thought Fellini going his own way brought something special of Poe out. Sure there have been more good faithful adaptations but this felt like a collaboration.
Well damn, that’s a hell of a recommendation (and pair of anti-recommendations). The shadows on Stamp in the header photo made me think of Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice and Toby Dammit sounds similarly nuts.
In some ways, I think Toby Dammit is Fellini’s last great film – although there are parts of Casanova and Amarcord that I love. It has an energy and humor to it that is unique to his body of work (and it even features a Ray Charles song)
Toby Dammit is also a mirror piece to Jacques Tati’s Playtime, at least the first part at the airport. Fellini even uses giant cardboard cutout standees like Tati.And it was the first glimpse of film by Fellini in quite a while. After 8 1/2, he had done his first color film, Juliet of the Spirits, which was something of a letdown. The partnership with the writers he had worked since the very early days (Tulio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano) was also crumbling down, and he started to shoot The Journey of G. Mastorna, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sofia Loren, until a massive heart attack and many insecurities killed the project after a few weeks. So, even if there had been only three years between Juliet… and Toby Dammit, the short was basically his comeback film, with much to prove and some major changes to his style. He hired Terence Stamp after Peter O’Toole dropped out the part a few weeks before production started (his loss…).Some credit must be given to his co-screenwriter on Toby Dammit, Bernardino Zapponi, the guy who worked on his most radical films from Satiricon to City of Women, including Roma or Il Casanova. Zapponi loved elliptic structures that highlight isolated sequences without any rational explanation rather than focusing on continuity (just as Fellini’s projects with Tonino Guerra have their own distinctive vibe), which worked like gangbusters on Satiricon, a novel from which only fragments survive.The whole film has been reissued in the UK by Arrow, and they offer some dub that mixes Italian for almost every character with English, for Terence Stamp. That may be the best way to watch this.Also, some quick word about the William Wilson segment. Louis Malle, a few years before he died, was the main guest at Bernard Pivot (the guy from the James Lipton questionnaire) who had a weekly late night show in France. Pivot asked him what his experience with actors usually was. Malle was diplomatic and claimed that he had been lucky enough to only have constructive collaborations with his cast. At this point, Michel Piccoli, a longtime friend and star of the film he was then promoting, burst out laughing. Pivot asked him to elaborate. Piccoli: “Frankly, Louis? After all the stuff you told me about Delon…”
Well this is the second time in just a few days that the AV Club has examined an obscure 1960s movie that I’ve seen, after “The Swimmer”. I’d have to agree that “Toby Dammit” is the strongest of the three adaptations, although I found the first two more watchable than the reader did. The set design in that segment is really trippy, like Terence Stamp has already died and gone to hell when he’s arriving at the airport.
I saw this ages ago on a late-night TV “fright night”-type feature (probably the closest real-life parallel I can think of to SCTV’s Count Floyd presenting Whispers of the Wolf). I was pretty young at the time, and found the William Wilson adaption boring, and “Toby Dammit” frustratingly incoherent. I did kind of enjoy the stylishly overwrought “Metzengerstein” — but maybe that was the Barbarella-esque cheesecake working on my adolescent hormones.
Both of the first two segments are really only carried by the babes.
Lucky you. I must have missed the “kid-ly late night TV runs.” 🙁 I’m guessing the films didn’t pair well with the late night commercials – Pepsi-Cola and local car dealerships.
This was KYW in Philly’s “Saturday Night Dead” running at 1:00AM, hosted by a buxom Elvira knockoff called “Stella”. In addition to staples of such programs, like the aforementioned Corman Poe movies and Hammer films, I remember them running somewhat more unusual selections like this, and the more recently released, if not particularly successful, The Company of Wolves.So the ads indeed included a fair number of car dealerships and other local businesses, but perhaps not quite as bottom-of-the-barrel stuff as you’d find on UHF at the same hour.
Pfft. My town doesn’t even compare to Philly – especially then. You guys get all the good stuff.I do remember Elvira though. In fact I just finished reading a piece about her career. Apparently her ‘look’ was influenced by the drag queens she met in the San Fransisco gay bars. Partied with Elvis at 17,… It’s good stuff https://thehundreds.com/blogs/content/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-elvira.
Toby? Toby. Toby Wong? Toby Chung? Toby Dammit!
[Gesticulates with cigar]I’M TOBY, DAMMIT!
Is it just me, or is there something about the way late 60s-early 70s European horror movies were filmed that makes them instantly recognizable? Seems to be a subtle blend of lighting, coloring, and camera angles.
Also they’re shot in color and they all have that very fake-looking blood that looks like melted candle wax.
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I hear what you’re laying down, but how many slaps to the face are there in this here motion picture?*watches trailer*
Seems like a lot.
This has been a guilty pleasure of mine since I saw it on late night TV in my teens. At the time, and today, I loved both incomprehensible European art films from the Sixties and Hammer style horror films. Here was the bizarre, sometimes stupid, sometimes brilliant combination of the two. I drove over an hour to see it on the big screen the one time I got the chance.I don’t know if I ever confessed it to her, but Toby Dammit is a big part of the reason I nicknamed my blonde niece The Antichrist. I don’t think I’ve had a prouder moment as an aunt than when she was twelve, learned of the nickname and decided she was proud of it. Now that I know it’s on Criterion, I will make her watch it when we can get together again.
Y’all ever catch THE CRIMSON EXECUTIONER? Now THAT’S entertainment.
No mention of Kill, Baby… Kill, the Mario Bava movie from which Fellini lifted the creepy blonde girl with the white ball?Yes, Fellini had used a creepy little blonde girl before, but the white ball and the specific look definitely reflect the influence of KBK, a movie Fellini is on record as admiring.Also, “Toby Dammit’ screenwriter Bernardo Zapponi was a Bava fan.