Following Lewis Rice O’Donnell’s recommendation, I watched Spirits Of The Dead (1968; Italian: Tre passi nel delirio, French: Histoires extraordinaires), a omnibus film of three stories based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe by different directors. The first starring Jane Fonda and directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim is about a debauched countess who becomes obsessed with a horse that may be a ghost of her dead cousin (Peter Fonda). The second is directed by Louis Malle and is about a man played by Alain Delon whose nefarious deeds are always shadowed and stopped by a double with the same name. Both of these stories were fine – gothic and atmospheric, traditional Poe tales. It’s the third story that is on another level with its contemporary setting and high style by director Frederico Fellini – his Poe story is a loose adaptation that is more of a Fellini film. It is about a British actor Toby Dammit (Terence Stamp, pictured) in Italy to make a film on the promise of a new Ferrari. Like a Tim Burton character prototype, Stamp is pasty and spindly, a great performance, a drunken thespian in free fall who suffers through a TV interview and award ceremony, the mad circus, all the while seeing the Devil awaiting him as he gets into his Ferrari. It’s hilarious and horrifying in equal measures with a nifty Nino Rota score. Made me want to watch more 1960s era anthology films as well as Fellini films. Recommended.
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