After the subversive aspects of Les Vampires offended the French
authorities, Feuillade trod safer ground with his next serial, whose
stiffly upright caped crusader is a rather less interesting figure
than the alluring anarchists of the earlier movie. By and large,
however, the film's importance lies in similar features: the
intelligent functionalism of Feuillade's direction, and the sense of
fantastic events unfolding against a quotidian background. And
certain scenes - like the heroine led in a daze through country lanes by a
pack of dogs - spring from an authentically surreal imagination.
