Spirits of the Dead (1968) on Netflix
Countess Frédérique de Metzengerstein desires her cousin, Baron Wilhelm Berlifitzing. William Wilson is shadowed by a double. Toby Dammit goes to Rome to make a western for a promised Ferrari.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.4/107,870 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Countess Frédérique de Metzengerstein inherits the family estate and gives herself to promiscuity and debauchery. A trap in the forest catches her leg, and her cousin Baron Wilhelm Berlifitzing, a stranger to her because of a long family feud, frees her. She becomes enamoured with him; he rejects her for her wicked ways. William Wilson confesses to a priest the cruelties of his life, and a double bearing the same name appears beside him. Toby Dammit, an alcoholic Shakespearean actor, agrees to a film in Rome in exchange for a new Ferrari.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Marlène Alexandreas (segment "Metzengerstein")
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Spirits of the Dead (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While shooting Roger Vadim's Metzengerstein segment in Rome, Peter Fonda told screenwriter Terry Southern his idea for a modern Western; Southern agreed to work on it, and it became the independent film Easy Rider.
- Louis Malle wanted Florinda Bolkan for the female lead in his segment William Wilson, but the producers insisted on a better-known actress and Brigitte Bardot took the role; Malle thought Bardot was miscast.
- Federico Fellini rejected Poe's devil, a lame old gentleman with his hair parted like a girl's, and cast Marina Yaru, a 22-year-old Russian woman, to play the Devil as a little girl in Toby Dammit.
- Samuel Z. Arkoff offered the producers $200,000 for American International Pictures to take the US and Canadian rights, but was refused because he wanted to cut a scene from Fellini's segment; a year later, with no other buyer, the producers accepted the same offer.
- Fellini's first choice for Spirits of the Dead was Bernardino Zapponi's story "C'è una voce nella mia vita", but the producers were reluctant to have Zapponi's name on the film, so Fellini changed his mind and turned to Poe instead.
- Louis Malle took the job of directing William Wilson only to raise money for his next film, Murmur of the Heart; raising that money took him three years, during which he shot two documentaries about India.
- Despite prominent billing in the film and its advertising, most of James Robertson Justice's and Françoise Prévost's performances appear to have been cut from the final print of Spirits of the Dead.
