Les Vampires, 3: 'Le Cryptogramme rouge'
Interiors = a louche cabaret; Philippe Guérande's home; his uncle's house; the Vampires' hideout:
Exteriors = a louche cabaret; Philippe Guérande's home; his uncle's house; roads near the fortifications; rooftop views of Paris; the Vampires' hideout and vicinity:
1/ Philippe Guérande's home - 3 rue du Général Langlois, 16e:
This location appears again as Guérande's home in episodes 5 and 8, and also in episode 4 as a bank.
Feuillade returns to the Rue du Général Langlois in Judex (1916) and Barrabas (1919):
Feuillade returns to the Rue du Général Langlois in Judex (1916) and Barrabas (1919):
2/ the rooftops near Guérande's home
These are nowhere near the Rue du Général Langlois. The first of the three shots looks eastwards across the Place du Châtelet towards the Tour Saint Jacques - it may be taken from the roof of the Théâtre de la Ville; the second shot has no locative features; the third shot looks westward towards the Pont-Neuf.
3/ the Chat Huant cabaret
The only clue to the location of this exterior is the board advertising a 'grand gala evening' at the Palais de Fêtes, a theatre and cabaret on the Rue Saint Martin. It isn't a very convincing clue. That gala event took place on May 31st 1913, more than two years before this episode was shot, so the board wasn't simply already there, it was placed as a prop. Perhaps the props department just happened to have this old notice in stock, and that there is no direct connection with the Palais des Fêtes. Even if it were the place we see in the film, it would be surprising if its exterior today matched what was there in 1915:
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4/ the home of Mme Guérande's brother
5/ by the fortifications
After leaving her brother's house Mme Guérande is immediately on a street near the fortifications, looking for a cab:
There were fortifications near the Boulevard de Montmorency, so this is a verisimilitude, but I cannot say if these are the fortifications by the Bois de Boulogne or those nearer the studio, on the other side of Paris.
She is kidnapped by the cab driver and the cab is shown driving off somewhere in the urban periphery: |
6/ the Vampire-hideout
The house from which she escapes could as easily be in the city as beyond it:
But the road she then finds herself on is suburban-rural, and the entrance into the hideout used later by Irma Vep is, apart from being topographically irreconcilable with the building above, fully rural:
Click below for 'Le Spectre', episode 4 of Les Vampires: