Once again, Black Coat Press presents a translation of a French novel featuring a character they have been using in their Tales of the Shadowmen series. This time it’s Belphegor, the so-called “Phantom of the Louvre.”
As far as I know, the movie serial this is based on is not available on DVD.
Black Coat Press has used this mysterious villain who “haunts” the Louvre several times, and now we can read the original story. The character was created in 1927 by Arthur Bernède, who was trying to create a film character to rival Fantomas or Judex, which he co-created 10 years prior.
“Belphegor” was originally filmed as a silent in 1927. Considering its later remakes and revivals, Bernède did succeed to a degree. Apparently visitors at the time of the original serial’s release asked to see the room where the Belphegor statue resided, which was non-existent!
Belphegor would spawn a TV series (the cover of the translation is taken from that series) and a more recent movie version as well, though these made changes to the characters. The extras in this book include synopses of that 1965 TV remake, along with the comic book adaptation that followed, as well as reprints of some of the covers to the book versions that have come out over the years.
“Belphegor” is the name of an ancient demon (not a god). The main villain of the story, the “Phantom of the Louvre” (also called Belphegor), is searching for a hidden treasure of the Kings of France that is connected to a statue of Belphegor located in the Louvre.
Opposing him are two characters. One is Chantecoq, originally created by Bernède as a French secret agent, now turned detective (he’s called the “king of detectives”) who appeared in other stories by the author. The other is the journalist Bellegarde, who seems to be based on the classic French journalist/adventurer Rouletabille (Black Coat Press has reprinted two of his classic stories so far).
Other characters include the daughter of Chantecoq (who didn’t appear in the other works of this character), Bellegarde’s fiance Simone Desroches, Police Inspector Ménardier, the Baron Papillon (his chateau is used in the climax of the story) and his wife, and a sinister hunchback. Adding to the plot, we have a love triangle between Bellegarde, Simone, and Chantecoq’s daughter, all of whom Belphegor menaces. Both Chantecoq and Ménardier are trying to unmask Belphegor as rivals.
The original story was serialized, then published in four volumes, later collected into a single volume and reprinted several times. Interestingly, between the original serialization and being collected, several passages (and in one case a whole chapter) were dropped. They have been restored in Black Coat Press’ edition as footnotes.
This is yet another great book from Black Coat Press. More information about Belphegor (and Rouletabille) can be found at BCP’s Cool French Comics/French Wold Newton site.
