General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Fantômas se déchaîne

Fantômas se déchaîne is a 1965 French-Italian comedy-adventure film directed by André Hunebelle, the second installment of the Fantômas trilogy starring Jean Marais as the masked criminal and Louis de Funès as Commissaire Juve. It was released in France on 8 December 1965 and earned about 4.2 million admissions, prompting a third film, Fantômas contre Scotland Yard (1967).¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director	André Hunebelle; Haroun Tazieff is credited as co-director on some listings¹^•³
Cast	Jean Marais (Fantômas / Fandor / Professor Lefèvre), Louis de Funès (Commissaire Juve), Mylène Demongeot (Hélène), Jacques Dynam (Inspector Bertrand)⁴
Release	8 December 1965 (France); produced by Gaumont with DA.MA. Produzione (Italy)¹^•⁵
Box office	4,212,446 admissions in France (678,554 in Paris and surrounding area)²
Key crew	Screenplay Jean Halain and Pierre Foucaud; music Michel Magne; cinematography Raymond Lemoigne; editing Jean Feyte; sets Max Douy⁴^•⁶
Source	Characters created by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain in their early 20th-century novels⁴
Series position	Second of three Hunebelle films: Fantômas (1964), Fantômas se déchaîne (1965), Fantômas contre Scotland Yard (1967)⁷

Spoilers

Plot

The film opens with Commissaire Juve apparently triumphant: the hunt for Fantômas seems to have succeeded, and Juve is decorated with the Légion d'honneur. Fantômas sends him a congratulatory telegram, then kidnaps Professor Marchand, a scientist who has invented a telepathy ray that Fantômas intends to turn into a weapon for dominating the world.⁸^•⁹ Because Marchand's invention cannot be completed without the work of Professor Lefèvre, Fantômas also plans to seize him during a trip to Rome; the journalist Fandor disguises himself as Lefèvre to trap the criminal.⁸^•⁵

The pursuit runs from a congress of scientists to the crater of a volcano, where Fantômas keeps his headquarters, and ends with Juve still unable to catch the masked man, who escapes in his flying Citroën DS while tracing a "F" in the sky.⁵^•¹

Production and style

A bigger role for de Funès. After the first Fantômas drew nearly 4.5 million spectators in 1964, the same team returned immediately for the sequel. In the interim Louis de Funès had become a box-office draw with Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (almost 8 million admissions), Fantômas (almost 4.5 million), and Le Corniaud (more than 11.7 million), so the planned removal of the Juve character was abandoned; Fantômas se déchaîne gives Juve a much larger part, nearly overshadowing Fandor.¹⁰ The tone shifts further toward comedy, with an animated opening-credits sequence that recreates moments from the first film and a parade of gadgets in the manner of the contemporary James Bond pictures, including the flying Citroën DS.¹⁰^•³

Effects and borrowed footage. The volcanic eruption shots were taken from the documentary Les Rendez-vous du diable by the volcanologist Haroun Tazieff, who is listed as co-director on several film databases.¹⁰^•³ Reviewers have noted that the rear-projection work, particularly in the final aerial sequence, has aged poorly.¹¹ The production companies were P.A.C. (Production Artistique et Cinématographique), S.N.E.G. (Société Nouvelle des Établissements Gaumont), and Victory Films.¹²

Design. The art director Max Douy designed Fantômas's headquarters inside a volcano, and the film's primary-color photography and extravagant sets have been described as an example of 1960s pop aesthetics, with an influence acknowledged on the James Bond universe.¹²

Reception

The film was a popular success, with 4.2 million French admissions, and it led directly to the third episode.² Critical responses have been divided. A Télérama review describes the film as vaudeville in the Hunebelle manner, in which Jean Marais's transformations and acrobatics count for less than Louis de Funès's comic turns, and judges that it has improved with age.⁸ On AlloCiné it holds an average spectator rating of 3.3 out of 5 from more than 9,000 ratings, with reviewers praising de Funès's comic performance and the film's pacing while criticizing the thin scenario and dated special effects.¹^•¹⁰ Mylène Demongeot herself acknowledged that in this installment she and Marais had little left to do beside de Funès.¹²

Titles and versions

The film circulated under several titles: Fantomas contre Interpol and Fantomas revient in French-speaking markets, Fantomas minaccia il mondo in Italy, and Fantomas Unleashed or The Return of Fantomas in English.¹³ Reported running times differ between sources: the Cinémathèque française lists 94 minutes, Gaumont lists 104 minutes, and other databases give 1h38 to 1h45.¹²^•⁵^•⁷ A remastered 2K Blu-ray was released by Gaumont on 4 October 2017.²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Action, thriller, and crime series film entries › Entries released 1960s and 1970s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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