Three legendary directors once united to reimagine the dark, twisted tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
In short: In 1968, the anthology film Spirits of the Dead brought together Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini. Each auteur adapted a classic Poe story, resulting in a surreal, ghoulish exploration of obsession, doppelgängers, and the devil. It remains a singular, haunting experiment in European gothic cinema.
The 1968 anthology film Spirits of the Dead emerged from a trend of European omnibus cinema. Producers Alberto Grimaldi and Raymond Eger commissioned the project, initially courting directors like Orson Welles, who planned to adapt two specific Poe stories before withdrawing in September 1967. The final trio of directors—Vadim, Malle, and Fellini—each took a distinct approach to the source material, resulting in a film that critics have long debated.
Roger Vadim’s segment, Metzengerstein, starred Jane Fonda as a debauched countess obsessed with a wild horse, a production that notably served as the backdrop for Peter Fonda to pitch the idea for the independent film Easy Rider to screenwriter Terry Southern. Louis Malle, meanwhile, directed William Wilson to fund his later work, though he later expressed dissatisfaction with the compromises made to satisfy producers, including the forced casting of Brigitte Bardot. Malle’s segment follows a man haunted by a murderous double, a classic Poe trope reimagined with explicit violence.
Federico Fellini’s contribution, Toby Dammit, is widely considered the film’s masterpiece. Working with writer Bernardino Zapponi, Fellini moved away from his initial interest in Zapponi’s original stories to focus on Poe’s Never Bet the Devil Your Head. Fellini famously subverted the traditional depiction of the devil, casting a young girl to represent the protagonist’s own internal immaturity. The segment’s highly artificial aesthetic and focus on a disintegrating celebrity mirrored themes from Fellini’s earlier works like 8½ and La Dolce Vita.
The film’s journey to international audiences was complex. It opened in Paris in June 1968 and Italy in September 1968, grossing 512 million Italian lira domestically. American International Pictures eventually secured the North American rights for $200,000 after the producers failed to find other buyers, releasing it in July 1969. Despite mixed initial reviews, the film has maintained a strong reputation, with 86% of 22 critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes currently listed as positive.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Spirits of the Dead
- Also: Wikidata — Spirits of the Dead · CC0
- Also: Wikidata — Spirits of the Dead · CC0
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