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''Vampyr'' () is a 1932
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
directed by Danish director
Carl Theodor Dreyer Carl Theodor Dreyer (; 3 February 1889 – 20 March 1968), commonly known as Carl Th. Dreyer, was a Danish film director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers in history, his movies are noted for emotional austerity ...
. It was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based on elements from
Sheridan Le Fanu Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (; 28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873), popularly known as J. S. Le Fanu, was an Irish writer of Gothic literature, mystery novels, and horror fiction. Considered by critics to be one of the greatest ghost ...
's 1872 collection of supernatural stories ''
In a Glass Darkly ''In a Glass Darkly'' is a collection of five stories by Sheridan Le Fanu, first published in 1872, the year before his death. The second and third stories are revised versions of previously published stories. The first three stories are short ...
''. The film was funded by Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, who (credited as Julian West) also played the starring role of Allan Gray, a student of the occult who wanders into the French village of Courtempierre, which is under the curse of a
vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...
. Most of the other members of the cast were also non-professional actors. The film presented a number of technical challenges for Dreyer, as it was his first
sound film A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...
and was recorded in three languages. To simplify matters, he decided to use very little dialogue in the film, and much of the story is told with
title cards In films and videos, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (hence, ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred ...
, like a
silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...
. The film was shot entirely on location, and to enhance the atmospheric content, Dreyer opted for a washed out,
soft focus In photography, soft focus is a lens flaw, in which the lens forms images that are blurred due to uncorrected spherical aberration. A soft focus lens deliberately introduces spherical aberration which blurs fine texture in the image while reta ...
photographic technique. The soundtrack was created in Berlin, where the characters' voices, the sound effects, and the score were recorded. After having its release delayed by nine months, allegedly so the American films ''
Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...
'' (1931) and ''
Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience, sapient Frankenstein's monster, crea ...
'' (1931) could be released first, ''Vampyr'' was released in Germany, where it opened to a generally negative reception from both audiences and critics. Dreyer edited the film after its German premiere, and it opened to more mixed reviews in France. The film was long considered a low point in Dreyer's career, but modern critical reception has been much more favorable, with critics praising the film's disorienting visual effects and atmosphere.


Plot

Late one evening, Allan Gray, a wandering student of the occult, arrives at an inn close to the village of Courtempierre, France, and rents a room. He is awakened from his sleep by an old man, who enters the locked room and leaves a small rectangular package on the table with "To be opened upon my death" written on the wrapping paper. Feeling drawn to investigate, Gray takes the package and leaves the inn. Gray follows the shadow of a soldier with a
peg leg A peg leg is a prosthesis, or artificial limb, fitted to the remaining stump of a human leg, especially a wooden one fitted at the knee. Its use dates to antiquity. History By the late 19th century, prosthetics vendors would offer peg legs as c ...
to a disused factory, where he sees the shadow reunite with its body, and witnesses other shadows dancing. He also sees an old woman who seems to hold sway over the shadows, and encounters an old man with a mustache, who shows Gray the door. Following some more shadows to a manor house, Gray looks through one of the windows and sees the lord of the manor, who is the man who gave him the package, get shot by the shadow of the soldier. Gray gets the attention of an old servant, and they rush to the lord of the manor, but it is too late to save him. Giséle, the lord of the manor's younger daughter, is there when he dies, but her sister, Léone, does not leave her bed, as she is gravely ill. A coachman is sent to get the police, and the old servant's wife invites Gray to stay the night. In the library, Gray opens the package and finds a book inside about horrific demons called vampires. As he begins to read about how the creatures suck blood and gain control over the living and dead, Giséle says she sees Léone walking outside. They follow her, and, when they catch up, see the old woman from the factory bent over Léone's unconscious body. The old woman slinks away, and Léone, who is discovered to have fresh bite wounds, is carried back to bed. The carriage returns, but the coachman is dead. The village doctor visits Léone at the manor, and Gray recognizes him as the old man with a mustache that he saw in the factory. The doctor tells Gray that Léone needs a blood transfusion, and Gray agrees to donate his blood. Exhausted from blood loss, Gray falls asleep. Meanwhile, the old servant has noticed the book and begun to read it. He learns that a vampire can be defeated by opening its grave at dawn and driving an iron bar through its heart, and that there are rumors that a vampire was really behind a previous epidemic in Courtempierre, with a woman named Marguerite Chopin being the prime suspect. Gray wakes up sensing danger and rushes to Léone's bedside, where he stops her from drinking poison that the old woman had the doctor bring to the manor. The doctor flees, kidnapping Giséle, and Gray follows. Just outside the factory, Gray trips and has an
out-of-body experience An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world as if from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally "seeing self"), although this term is more common ...
, in which he sees himself dead, sealed in a coffin with a window, and carried away to be buried. After his spirit returns to his body, he notices the old servant heading to Marguerite Chopin's grave. They open the grave and find the old woman perfectly preserved, until they hammer a large metal bar through her heart, at which point she becomes a skeleton. The curse of the vampire is lifted, and, back at the manor, Léone suddenly recovers. The ghost of the lord of the manor appears to the doctor, causing him to run away and the soldier to fall to his death down a flight of stairs. Using information he gathered during his out-of-body experience, Gray finds and unties Giséle. The doctor tries to hide in an old mill, but the old servant, seemingly aided by an unseen force, locks the doctor in a chamber where flour sacks are filled and activates the mill's machinery, which fills the chamber with flour and suffocates the doctor. Giséle and Gray cross a foggy river in a boat and find themselves in a bright clearing.


Cast

*
Nicolas de Gunzburg Nicolas Louis Alexandre de Gunzburg (; 12 December 1904 – 20 February 1981), also known as Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, was a French-born magazine editor and socialite. He became an editor at several American publications, including ''Town & Cou ...
(credited as Julian West) as Allan Gray, a young wanderer whose studies of occult matters have made him a dreamer. Gray's view of the world is described as a blur of the real and unreal. *
Maurice Schutz Maurice Schutz (4 August 1866 – 22 March 1955) was a French film actor. He starred in some 91 films between 1918 and 1952. Selected filmography * '' Quatre-vingt-treize'' (1920) * ''Au-delà des lois humaines'' (1920) * '' The Three Masks'' ...
as the Lord of the Manor, Giséle and Léone's father, who offers Gray a book about vampirism to help Gray save his daughters. After his murder, he returns briefly as a spirit and takes revenge on the village doctor and a soldier who had helped the vampire. * Rena Mandel as Giséle, the younger daughter of the Lord of the Manor, who is kidnapped by the Village Doctor late in the film. *
Sybille Schmitz Sybille Maria Christina Schmitz (2 December 1909 – 13 April 1955) was a German actress. Biography Schmitz attended an acting school in Cologne and got her first engagement at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1927. Only one year l ...
as Léone, the older daughter of the Lord of the Manor, who is in thrall to the vampire and finds her strength dwindling day by day. * Jan Hieronimko as the Village Doctor, a pawn of the vampire. He kidnaps Giséle late in the film. * Henriette Gérard as Marguerite Chopin, the vampire, an old woman whose hold extends beyond her immediate victims. Many villagers, including the doctor, are her minions. * Albert Bras as the Old Servant, a servant at the manor house. When Gray is incapacitated after donating blood to Léone, he finds the book on vampirism and, aided by Gray, ends the vampire's reign of terror. * N. Babanini as the Old Servant's Wife * Jane Mora as the Nurse * Georges Boidin as the Limping Soldier with a
peg leg A peg leg is a prosthesis, or artificial limb, fitted to the remaining stump of a human leg, especially a wooden one fitted at the knee. Its use dates to antiquity. History By the late 19th century, prosthetics vendors would offer peg legs as c ...
(uncredited)


Production


Development

Carl Theodor Dreyer Carl Theodor Dreyer (; 3 February 1889 – 20 March 1968), commonly known as Carl Th. Dreyer, was a Danish film director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers in history, his movies are noted for emotional austerity ...
began planning ''Vampyr'' in late 1929, a year after the release of his previous film, ''
The Passion of Joan of Arc ''The Passion of Joan of Arc'' () is a 1928 French silent historical film based on the actual record of the trial of Joan of Arc. The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan. It is widely regarde ...
''. The production company behind ''Joan of Arc'' had plans to make another film with Dreyer, but that project was dropped, which led Dreyer to decide to go outside the studio system to make his next film. ''Vampyr'' was made under difficult circumstances, as the arrival of sound to film had put the European film industry in turmoil. The French film studios lagged behind technologically, and the first French sound films were shot on sound stages in England. As ''Vampyr'' was Dreyer's first sound film, he went to England to study the new technology, and, while there, he got together with Danish writer Christen Jul, who was living in London at the time. Wanting to create a story based on the supernatural, Dreyer read over thirty mystery stories. He found a number of re-occurring elements, such as doors opening mysteriously and door handles moving with no one knowing why, which helped him feel that, "We can jolly well make this stuff too". The success of the stage version of ''
Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...
'' in London and New York in 1927 contributed to Dreyer's assessment that
vampires A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...
were "fashionable things at the time", and he Jul created a story based on elements from
Sheridan Le Fanu Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (; 28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873), popularly known as J. S. Le Fanu, was an Irish writer of Gothic literature, mystery novels, and horror fiction. Considered by critics to be one of the greatest ghost ...
's ''
In a Glass Darkly ''In a Glass Darkly'' is a collection of five stories by Sheridan Le Fanu, first published in 1872, the year before his death. The second and third stories are revised versions of previously published stories. The first three stories are short ...
'', a collection of five stories first published in 1872; ''Vampyr'' draws from two stories in the collection: ''
Carmilla ''Carmilla'' is an 1872 Gothic fiction, Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. It is one of the earliest known works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' (1897) by 25 years. First published ...
'', a
lesbian vampire Lesbian vampirism is a Trope (literature), trope in early gothic horror and 20th century exploitation film. The archetype of a lesbian vampire used the fantasy genre to circumvent the heavy LGBT censorship, censorship of lesbian characters in the ...
story, and ''The Room in the Dragon Volant'', which is about a live burial. Dreyer found it difficult to decide on a title for the film. Early titles may have included ''Destiny'' and ''Shadows of Hell'', and, when the film was presented in the March 1931 issue of the film journal ''
Close Up A close-up or closeup in filmmaking, television production, still photography, and the comic strip medium is a type of shot that tightly frames a person or object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium and long ...
'', it was referred to as ''The Strange Adventure of David Gray''.


Pre-production

Dreyer returned to France to begin casting and
location scouting Location scouting is a vital process in the pre-production stage of filmmaking and commercial photography. Once scriptwriters, producers or directors have decided what general kind of scenery they require for the various parts of their work ...
. At that time, in France there was a small movement of artistic independently financed films, including
Luis Buñuel Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish and Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians and directors to be one of the greatest and ...
's '' L'Âge d'Or'' and
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...
's ''
The Blood of a Poet ''The Blood of a Poet'' (, ) is a 1932 avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau, financed by Charles de Noailles and starring Enrique Riveros, a Chilean actor who had a successful career in European films. Photographer Lee Miller made her o ...
'' which were both produced in 1930. Through
Valentine Hugo Valentine Hugo (; 1887–1968) was a French artist and writer. She was born Valentine Marie Augustine Gross, only daughter to Auguste Gross and Zélie Démelin, in Boulogne-sur-Mer. She is best known for her work with the Russian ballet and with ...
, Dreyer met
Nicolas de Gunzburg Nicolas Louis Alexandre de Gunzburg (; 12 December 1904 – 20 February 1981), also known as Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, was a French-born magazine editor and socialite. He became an editor at several American publications, including ''Town & Cou ...
, an
aristocrat The aristocracy (''from Greek'' ''ἀριστοκρατία'' ''aristokratía'', "rule of the best"; ''Latin: aristocratia'') is historically associated with a "hereditary" or a "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the ...
who agreed to finance Dreyer's next film in return for playing the lead role in it. Gunzberg had arguments with his family about becoming an actor, so he created the pseudonym "Julian West", a name that would be the same in all three languages in which the film was going to be shot. Most members of the cast of ''Vampyr'' were not professional actors. Jan Hieronimko, who plays the village doctor, was found on a late night metro train in Paris. When approached to act in the film, Hieronimko reportedly stared blankly and did not reply, but he later contacted Dreyer's crew and agreed to join the film. Many of the other non-professional actors in the film were found in similar fashion in shops and cafés. The only professional actors in the film were
Maurice Schutz Maurice Schutz (4 August 1866 – 22 March 1955) was a French film actor. He starred in some 91 films between 1918 and 1952. Selected filmography * '' Quatre-vingt-treize'' (1920) * ''Au-delà des lois humaines'' (1920) * '' The Three Masks'' ...
, who plays the lord of the manor, and
Sybille Schmitz Sybille Maria Christina Schmitz (2 December 1909 – 13 April 1955) was a German actress. Biography Schmitz attended an acting school in Cologne and got her first engagement at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1927. Only one year l ...
, who plays his daughter Léone. Many of the film's crew members had worked with Dreyer on ''Joan of Arc'',
cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...
Rudolph Maté Rudolph Maté (born Rudolf Mayer; 21 January 1898 – 27 October 1964) was a Polish-Hungarian cinematographer who worked in Hungary, Austria, Germany, and France. He collaborated with notable directors including Fritz Lang, René Clair, and Carl ...
and art director
Hermann Warm Hermann Warm was a German art director for films. Born in 1889 (died 1976) in Berlin, Germany, Warm was an important figure in the expressionist movement of the 1920s. Warm entered the German film industry in 1912 after working on-stage for a wh ...
among them. Dreyer and Maté contributed to the location scouting for ''Vampyr'', but Dreyer left most of the scouting to an assistant, who he instructed to find, among other locations, "a factory in ruins, a chopped up phantom, worthy of the imagination of
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...
. Somewhere in Paris. We can't travel far." In the original script, the village doctor was intended to flee the village and get trapped in a swamp. Dreyer later related that, while looking for a suitable mire, he and his team passed a house where "strange white shadows danced around the windows and doors". They discovered it was a plaster mill, and, wanting to try to capture the same effect of air full of white powder in the film, decided to change the film's ending to take place in a flour mill.


Filming

''Vampyr'' was filmed between 1930 and 1931. The entire film was shot on location, with many scenes shot in Courtempierre, France. Dreyer felt shooting on location would lend the film the feel of a dream-like ghost world, as well as save money. The scenes in the manor house were shot in April and May 1930. The manor house also served as housing for the cast and crew during the filming, but life there was unpleasant, as it was cold and infested with rats. The scene in the churchyard was shot in August 1930. The church was really a barn with a number of tombstones placed around it by art director Warm. Dreyer originally wanted ''Vampyr'' to be a
silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...
, and, indeed, no sound was captured during filming and it uses many techniques from the silent era, such as
title cards In films and videos, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (hence, ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred ...
to explain the story. Dialogue was kept to a minimum in the film, both for this reason, and because three different versions of the film were planned, so the scenes with dialogue had to be filmed with the actors mouthing their lines in German, French, and English during separate takes so that their lip movements would correspond to the voices that were going to be recorded in post-production. Critic and writer
Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. He is interested in film history and horror fiction – both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at the age of eleven & ...
described the style of ''Vampyr'' as being more like that of experimental features such as ''
Un Chien Andalou (, ''An Andalusian Dog'') is a 1929 French silent short film directed, produced and edited by Luis Buñuel, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Salvador Dalí. Buñuel's first film, it was initially released in a limited capacity at Studio ...
'' (1929), than "quickie horror film made after the release of ''
Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...
'' (1931). Dreyer originally was going to film ''Vampyr'' in what he described as a "heavy style", but changed direction after cinematographer Maté showed him a shot that came out fuzzy and blurred. This washed-out look was an effect Dreyer desired, and he had Maté shoot the rest of the film through a piece of gauze held three feet (.9 m) away from the camera to re-create it. For other visuals in the film, Dreyer found inspiration in the fine arts. Actress Rena Mandel, who plays Giséle, said Dreyer showed her reproductions of paintings by
Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...
during filming. In Denmark, Henry Hellsen, a journalist and friend of Dreyer, wrote in detail about the film and the artworks that it appeared to draw from.


Post-production

Dreyer shot and edited the film in France, then moved to Berlin, where it was post-synchronized in both German and French; there is no record of the planned English version of the film being completed. The audio work was done at
Universum Film AG UFA GmbH, shortened to UFA (), is a film and television production company that unites all production activities of the media conglomerate Bertelsmann in Germany. The original UFA was established as on December 18, 1917, as a direct response t ...
, as they had the best sound equipment available to Dreyer at the time. The only actors who dubbed their own voices are Gunzburg as Gray and
Sybille Schmitz Sybille Maria Christina Schmitz (2 December 1909 – 13 April 1955) was a German actress. Biography Schmitz attended an acting school in Cologne and got her first engagement at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1927. Only one year l ...
as Léone. The sounds of dogs, parrots, and other animals in the film were created by professional human animal imitators.
Wolfgang Zeller Wolfgang Zeller (12 September 1893 – 11 January 1967) was a German composer noted for his complex film music. Life Born in Biesenrode (now part of Mansfeld), Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire, Zeller was the son of a vic ...
composed the film's score, working with Dreyer to develop the music. When asked about his intention with the film at the Berlin premiere, Dreyer replied that he "had not any particular intention. I just wanted to make a film different from all other films. I wanted, if you will, to break new ground for the cinema. That is all." Asked if he succeeded, he replied:"Yes, I have broken new ground". There are scenes that were included in the script and shot that do not exist in any current prints of ''Vampyr''. These scenes include: the vampire in the factory recoiling from a cross formed by the shadow of a window frame, the vampire exerting her control over a pack of dogs, and the ferryman guiding Gray and Giséle across the river by getting young children to build a fire and sing a hymn. Additionally, there are differences between the German and French versions of the film. The character of "David Gray" was renamed "Allan Gray" for the German version, which Dreyer attributed to a mistake, and the German censors ordered cuts to the film that still exist today in some prints. The scenes that had to be toned down for the German version include the vampire's death from the stake and the doctor's death under the milled flour. Dreyer also prepared a Danish version of the film, based on the German version, but with Danish title cards and subtitles. The distributor could not afford to have the title cards for this version to be done in the same manner as they appear in the German version, so they were done in a simpler style, but Dreyer would not allow the pages from the book shown in the film to be presented as plain title cards in the Danish version, saying: "Don't you understand that the old book is not a text in the ordinary, stupid sense, but an actor just as much as the others?"


Release

The premiere of ''Vampyr'' in Germany was delayed by
UFA Ufa is a city in Russia and the capital of the republic of Bashkortostan. UFA or Ufa may also refer to: Places * Ufa (river), a river in Russia; a tributary of the Belaya * Ufa International Airport, near the Russian city * Ufa railway statio ...
for approximately nine months, as the studio wanted the American films ''
Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...
'' (1931) and ''
Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience, sapient Frankenstein's monster, crea ...
'' (1931) to be released first, but the film was still a financial failure. When it finally premiered in Berlin on 6 May 1932, the audience booed the film, and Dreyer reportedly removed several scenes following the first showing. At a showing of the film in
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, audiences demanded their money back. When this was denied, a riot broke out, and police restored order with night sticks. The Paris premiere of the film took place in September 1932, as the opening attraction of a new cinema on the
Boulevard Raspail The Boulevard Raspail () is a boulevard of Paris, in France. Its orientation is north–south, and joins boulevard Saint-Germain with place Denfert-Rochereau whilst traversing 7th, 6th and 14th arrondissements. The boulevard intersects maj ...
. Société Générale de Cinema, which had previously distributed Dreyer's ''Joan of Arc'', distributed the film in France. When the film premiered in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
in March 1933, Dreyer did not attend, as he had suffered a nervous breakdown and was in a mental hospital in France. In the United States, the film premiered with English subtitles under the title ''Not Against the Flesh''. ''Castle of Doom'', an English-dubbed version edited severely as to both the film continuity and the music track, appeared a few years later on the roadshow circuit.


Critical reception

Reviews of the film at the time of its initial release in Europe ranged from mixed to negative. The press in Germany did not like the film. After the Berlin premiere, a film critic from ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' wrote: "Whatever you think of the director Charles icTheodor Dreyer, there is no denying that he is 'different'. He does things that make people talk about him. You may find his films ridiculous—but you won't forget them...Although in many ways 'Vampyr''was one of the worst films I have ever attended, there were some scenes in it that gripped with brutal directness". Critical reaction to the film in Paris was mixed. Reporter
Herbert Matthews Herbert Lionel Matthews (January 10, 1900 – July 30, 1977) was a reporter and editorialist for ''The New York Times'' who, at the age of 57, won widespread attention after revealing that the 30-year-old Fidel Castro was still alive and living in ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' called ''Vampyr'' "a hallucinating film", that "either held the spectators spellbound as in a long nightmare or else moved them to hysterical laughter". For many years after the initial release of the film, it was viewed by critics as one of Dreyer's weaker works. More modern reception for ''Vampyr'' has been more positive. On the
review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
98% of 45 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.7/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Full of disorienting visual effects, Carl Theodor Dreyer's ''Vampyr'' is as theoretically unsettling as it is conceptually disturbing." Todd Kristel of the online film database
AllMovie AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, television series, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne. History AllMovie was ...
gave the film four and a half stars out of five, writing that it "isn't the easiest classic film to enjoy, even if you are a fan of 1930s horror movies", but, "If you're patient with the slow pacing and ambiguous story line of ''Vampyr'', you'll find that this film offers many striking images", and saying that, although it is "not exciting in terms of pacing, it's a good choice if you want to see a film that establishes a compelling mood".
Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for '' The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has contributed to ...
of the ''
Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. The ''Reader'' has been ...
'' wrote: "The greatness of Carl Dreyer's 'Vampyr''derives partly from its handling of the vampire theme in terms of sexuality and eroticism and partly from its highly distinctive, dreamy look, but it also has something to do with Dreyer's radical recasting of narrative form".
J. Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at ''The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic f ...
of the ''
Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...
'' wrote that "''Vampyr'' is Dreyer's most radical film—maybe one of my dozen favorite movies by any director". Anton Bitel of
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
awarded the film four and a half stars out of five, calling it "lesser known (but in many ways superior)" to the 1922 silent vampire film ''
Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' () is a 1922 silent film, silent German Expressionism (cinema), German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen. It stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who ...
'', and writing: "a triumph of the irrational, Dreyer's eerie
memento mori (Latin for "remember (that you have) to die")
never allows either protagonist or viewer fully to wake up from its surreal nightmare". In the early 2010s, the London edition of '' Time Out'' polled several authors, directors, actors, and critics who have worked within the horror genre about the best horror films, and ''Vampyr'' placed 50th out of 100.
Andrei Tarkovsky Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (, ; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Russian origin. He is widely considered one of the greatest directors in cinema history. Works by Andrei Tarkovsky, His films e ...
considered the film a masterpiece and named it one of the 77 essential works of cinema.


Home media

''Vampyr'' has been released with imperfect image and sound, as the original German and French film and sound negatives are lost. Prints of the French and German versions of the film exist, but most are either incomplete or damaged. It has been released in the United States under the titles of ''The Vampire'' and ''Castle of Doom'', and in the United Kingdom under the title of ''The Strange Adventures of David Gray'', but many of these prints are severely cut, such as the re-dubbed English-language ''Castle of Doom'' print, which runs 60-minutes. The film was originally released on DVD on 13 May 1998 by
Image Entertainment RLJ Entertainment (formerly Image Entertainment) is an American film production company and home video distributor, distributing film and television productions in North America, with approximately 3,200 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 34 ...
, which had an abridged 72-minute running time. Image's release of ''Vampyr'' is a straight port of the
Laserdisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
that film restorer David Shepard produced in 1991. The subtitles are large and ingrained, due to the source print having Danish subtitles that have been blacked out and covered. This DVD includes
Ladislas Starevich Ladislas Starevich (, ; August 8, 1882 – February 26, 1965) was a Polish-Russian stop-motion animator notable as the author of the first puppet-animated film '' The Beautiful Leukanida'' (1912). He also used dead insects and other animals as p ...
's 1933
stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...
animated short film ''The Mascot'' as a bonus feature.
The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
released a two-disc DVD edition of ''Vampyr'' on 22 July 2008. This release includes the original German version of the film sourced from an HD digital transfer of the 1998 restoration, numerous special features, and a book featuring Dreyer and Christen Jul's original screenplay and Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 story "Carmilla". Criterion released this package on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
in October 2017. A Region 2 DVD of the film was released by Eureka Video as part of its
Masters of Cinema Masters of Cinema is a line of DVD and Blu-ray releases published through Eureka Entertainment. Because of the uniformly branded and spine-numbered packaging and the standard inclusion of booklets and analysis by recurring film historians, the li ...
series on 25 August 2008. The Eureka release contains the same bonus material as the Criterion Collection discs, but also includes two
deleted scene A deleted scene is footage that has been removed from the final version of a film or television show. There are various reasons why these scenes are deleted, which include time constraints, relevance, quality or a dropped story thread, and can al ...
s and an
audio commentary An audio commentary is an additional audio track, usually digital, consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with a video. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add informatio ...
by director
Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro Gómez (; born 9 October 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and artist. His work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales, Gothic fiction, gothicism and horror fiction, horror often blending the genres ...
. A 2022 Blu-ray release from Eureka Video made from a new 2K restoration of the film done by the
Danish Film Institute The Danish Film Institute (; DFI) is the national Danish institution, agency responsible for supporting and encouraging film and cinema culture, and for conserving these in the national interest. It is the successor organisation to the Danish Fil ...
contains two audio tracks, one restored and the other unrestored, and the same extras as their 2008 DVD release.


See also

*
List of cult films Cult films are films with a dedicated and passionate following, often defined by their opposition to mainstream appeal and traditional cinematic norms. While the term lacks a singular definition, it generally includes films that inspire devoted fa ...
*
List of French films of 1932 A list of films produced in France in 1932: A-L M-Z See also * 1932 in France References External links French films of 1932at the Internet Movie Database French films of 1932at Cinema-francais.fr {{DEFAULTSORT:French Films Of 1932 1 ...
*
List of German films 1919–1933 A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
List of horror films of the 1930s A list of horror films released in the 1930s. History The American horror film industry was properly created in the 1930s, most notably the Universal Horror film productions. '' White Zombie'' is considered the first feature-length zombie film a ...
*
Vampire film Vampire films have been a staple in world cinema since the era of silent films, so much so that the depiction of vampires in popular culture is strongly based upon their depiction in films throughout the years. The most popular cinematic adaptat ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * *


External links

* * * * *
''Vampyr: From Carmilla to Carl Dreyer''
a
Teleport City

''Vampyr’s Ghosts and Demons''
an essay by Mark Le Fanu at the
Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...
{{Good article 1932 horror films 1932 films French black-and-white films German vampire films Films based on Carmilla Films directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer Films of the Weimar Republic French vampire films Gothic horror films German black-and-white films Films set in castles Films set in France 1930s French films 1930s German films German-language French films Films scored by Wolfgang Zeller