In the spring of 1916, Louis Feuillade had to interrupt his immensely successful Les Vampires serial, since the patriotic press (not to mention the highest authorities) were incensed by the cinematic glorification of a gang of criminals at the height of a sacred war. Léon Gaumont and his favoured director needed to react swiftly. With the help of Arthur Bernède on the script, they put together a new series where the darkness of the past would find its exact opposite and justice (judex!) would finally prevail over the crooks, fond of driving innocent people to despair. An exemplary figure was crucial to representing the triumphant law.
Homunculus, a Danish film, featured a superhero played by Olaf Fønss, attired in a cape and a wide-brimmed felt hat as black as his gaze. This would serve as the model for the central character of the work to emerge; the handsome actor who would don a disguise destined to become as popular as Fantômas’s tights was René Cresté, until then confined to smaller roles as a young lead. Apart from the superb fantasy of Paris in Les Vampires, Feuillade had probably never incorporated such strong, poetic imagery of the landscape. André Glatti and Léon Klausse took over the reins from Georges Guérin, who was deployed, with no detriment to Feuillaude’s famous photogenic style. On the contrary, the Château Rouge (actually the Château Gaillard near Les Andelys) provided an unforgettable natural backdrop, skilfully combined with the set of Judex’s laboratory, designed as usual by Gaumont’s Robert-Jules Garnier. We must, of course, mention the prestigious and sizeable cast of Judex, especially its two opposing heroines: the sorrowful Yvette Andréyor as Jacqueline, a role far removed from her stone-cold character in Fantômas, and, naturally, the invariably venomous Musidora, formerly Irma Vep in Les Vampires, here renamed Diana Monti, maintaining her treacherous elegance as a garçonne ahead of her time. And then… a final Feuillade touch, the presence of children as actors pivotal to the plot. The beloved René Poyen, the incarnation of Bout-de-Zan in the director’s prolific series of shorts, played a parallel part as Réglisse the kid; young actress Olinda Mano, alias little Jean, was poignant at every turn as the son of Jacqueline, who is in serious danger. But didn’t the director once declare, “If you really want to make a film a success, put animals and children in it!”? Louis Feuillade, with his Judex, could not have agreed more.

Pierre Philippe