Malpertuis (1971)(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-23)
There is something even stranger about Malpertuis' other inhabitants: the mad hermit Lampernisse who haunts the mansion's dark corridors, the coy and beautiful Euryale who will not look anyone in the face, and the diabolic taxidermist Philarete, to name only a few.
When the secret of Malpertuis is finally brought to light among this bizarre cast of characters, the mansion erupts into a seething cauldron of terror, and both heaven and earth seem to collapse around Jan.
Instead of a tall, shadowy, aged-but-ageless, and profoundly mad hermit, he looks like a leper who has wandered off the set of "Ben-Hur." Accompanying Lampernisse is the laughable, high-pitched babble of the "creatures in the attic." In these rare instances, the filmmakers miss by a wide margin the texture of Ray's novel.
There is something even stranger about Malpertuis' other inhabitants: the mad hermit Lampernisse who haunts the mansion's dark corridors, the hulking mute Tchiek, & the diabolic taxidermist Philarete, to name only a few.
When the secret of Malpertuis is finally brought to light among this bizarre cast of characters, the mansion erupts into a seething cauldron of terror, & both heaven & earth seem to collapse around Jean-Jacques.
Instead of a tall, shadowy, aged-but-ageless, & profoundly mad hermit, he looks like a leper who has wandered off the set of "Ben-Hur." Accompanying Lampernisse is the laughable, high-pitched babble of the "creatures in the attic." In these rare instances, the filmmakers miss by a wide margin the texture of Ray's novel.
A second voice belonging to a man called Lampernisse (Jean-Pierre Cassel), who seems to live in a cave-like room beneath a staircase, also echoes around the house, pleading for someone to bring him a light.
Lampernisse watches through a hole in the wall.
At first delighted to hear that Cassave’s fortune will be divided equally amongst them all, the inhabitants are horrified when they are told that if they ever leave Malpertuis, they will forfeit their inheritance.
No life seemed to exist in that once busy spot; and the shrapnel whizzing over us in the sky, directed against the railway to our right, was a sign of the times.
We slowed up at Lampernisse, and sadness seized us.
I recalled its friendly tower — the throng of soldiers that had surrounded it, the gay faces of the little blue Belgians that had met one cheerily on every side.
He was accompanied by an old blind dog that seemed to have no trouble finding its way around the sea of bric-a-brac in the shop, a sort of Cerberus perfectly at home in his world of darkness.
What can old man Lampernisse do for you, sonny?
Would you like to buy a genuine Jivaro shrunken head removed from the shoulders of a careless explorer, American Indian fetishes, a genuine map of the seven cities of Cibola tatooed onto the skin of a Spanish Jesuit or perhaps this meerschaum pipe with its Mephistophelian head?
