The Devil's Lantern

Liriel · Post by **Liriel** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 3:38 am

I heard about this film vaguely over the internet. This is the information I found:

Fredrick Skellig’s 1933 masterpiece entitled “The Devil‘s Lantern.” The ‘lantern’ in question is an antique movie projector (a German made Blatner cinematographe) that contained a silent reel filmed at the Theatre du grand guignol in Paris in 1899. Evidently, the reel contained the actual human sacrifice of Victorian actress La Belle Venus which is why when director Skellig inserted it into his 1933 film, all copies (except for a single nitrate copy that was found in an East-European archive) disappeared before its theatrical release. The nitrate copy itself was labeled “The Raven's Didn't Tell” which is an anagram for “The Devil's Lantern” with a mysterious phrase “what the dagger spelled when it fell” hinting at the real (real to reel) human sacrifice of the unfortunate actress. Although the video is very difficult to obtain, it does exist and is intensely frightening with its atmospheric sets, murky camera work, and actual ritualistic murder that was originally screened in a basement lounge known as “Salon Indien” in Paris in 1899. A shocking film with an incredible surprise ending that concerns a magical alphabet of daggers “in the windows of a trapezohedron” (24 equal trapezoidal planes = to the four and twenty blackbirds of an occult nursery rhyme that signifies the number of months the astral corpse lingers near the deceased for a necromancer to ’resurrect.’)

Has anyone else heard of this film?

lovechild · Post by **lovechild** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 5:34 pm

nope, i havent but sounds interesting...i will be looking into it as well

Lost Traveler · Post by **Lost Traveler** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 11:58 am

Dude!!!!!!!!!!!! I would curse you but im having too much fun with this one. Except for the original ref off the tool news I can not find anything on this. You hooked me, occult mystery and antique projectors, I couldnt resist.
I contacted experts from the west to the east coast, and even a STRANGE Skelligs cult (that I believe have put me on their heritic list for even sugesting there is a movie that they dont know about.)

The closest I came was a 1931 italian movie called "The Devils Lantern" but that had a different director. It would help if you could find out who the star and rest of the cast were.

I cant even confirm the existance of a Blatner Cinematographe and I even went back into pre cinema magic lanterns.

any way still looking and if you can get any more info it would help. (maybe what eastern European archive it was found in.)

Liriel · Post by **Liriel** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 2:53 pm

The internet movie database lists this as the full cast:

La Baiocchi
Nella Maria Bonora
Guido Celano
Carlo Gualandri
Il Piccolo Lamberto
Alfredo Martinelli
Donatella Neri
Letizia Quaranta
Carlo Tamberlani
Raimondo Van Riel

Then there's the director's name and that it was an italian film in black and white with a mono sound mix. That's all the information it has. I've even tried google searching it several different ways with no luck. Just the fact that the IMDB lists it, assures that it is a real film; finding a copy is another matter entirely.

vicious_blood · Post by **vicious_blood** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 2:57 pm

Ok...maybe I'm confused but are you saying there is an actually film of some actress getting murdered??? Or is it fake but pretending to be real??? Do I make any sense at all??? The world may never know...

Lost Traveler · Post by **Lost Traveler** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 3:07 pm

Actually the one your talking about Liriel is the italian one from 1931 which I dont belive is the one you looking for (but thats true only if the original info is correct, if some of it is wrong then who knows). Im going to keep working on it as if it was a skelligs movie (some of the people i talked to said this sounded like something he would do they had just never heard of it) You can try and get the italian one and let me know if it turns out to be the right one.

p.s. if it is I would love to see it or at least post a picture of the cinemetographe and the "24 daggers"

Liriel · Post by **Liriel** » Sat Nov 15, 2003 3:32 pm

vicious_blood wrote:Ok...maybe I'm confused but are you saying there is an actually film of some actress getting murdered??? Or is it fake but pretending to be real??? Do I make any sense at all??? The world may never know...

Actually I believe it's supposed to be a short clip of an actress being murdered that appears in the film plot, but all but one copy of the film disappeared before it was released and the one that got released didn't have the murder clip in it, it had a phrase that hinted to the original clip instead. Or at least that's what I gather.

vicious_blood · Post by **vicious_blood** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:35 pm

Liriel wrote:
vicious_blood wrote:Ok...maybe I'm confused but are you saying there is an actually film of some actress getting murdered??? Or is it fake but pretending to be real??? Do I make any sense at all??? The world may never know...

Actually I believe it's supposed to be a short clip of an actress being murdered that appears in the film plot, but all but one copy of the film disappeared before it was released and the one that got released didn't have the murder clip in it, it had a phrase that hinted to the original clip instead. Or at least that's what I gather.

So, it's an actuall real murder? Like someone totally got killed for real? That's kinda freaky...and intreguing. (sp?)

Lost Traveler · Post by **Lost Traveler** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 2:55 pm

A POSSIBLE LEAD

Lost Traveler · Post by **Lost Traveler** » Mon Dec 29, 2003 6:30 pm

Well I used all my resources, and that person from tool news wont reply to email, so this one is going into my cold case files, but if anything ever turns up I make sure to notify you. :-(