Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Hitchcoc Many of the reviewers were on the same page. I have to fall in line, I'm afraid. The first of the trio, "Mazzengerstein", was just plain dull. You have the beautiful young Jane Fonda becoming an heiress from hell. She runs the show at all times because of her financial power. Don't cross her. However, could they have chosen someone else but brother Peter as the ultimate love interest? Fortunately, I didn't notice him in the credits. Beyond that, the story was slow moving and downright dull. "William Wilson" is a great example for English teachers of the "Doppelganger" story. In this one the young Wilson does terrible things, primarily to women. He is a psychotic. Getting quite Freudian, we see where his corporeal superego moves in to stop him. Unfortunately, in at least one case, the damage has been done. The story works better than the first, but it is hackneyed. In the third, Terrence Stamp, "Far from the Madding Crowd," is an alcoholic actor who comes to Italy to make a weird western. He is accosted by the paparazzi and driven to distraction. Of course, he is drunk the whole time. But in typical Fellini fashion, he is met by a herd of surrealist images. He has been promised a Ferrari and when he gets his hands on it, he goes crazy. We can see this coming, but no one can create a nightmare world like the wonderful Fellini. All in all, I had never heard of this film and hung in there until the highly superior last offering.

bensonj It's interesting that no IMDb commenters seem to have caught Malle's significant homage in "William Wilson."Malle makes Wilson far more sadistic than Poe's character. In the opening school sequence, Poe's Wilson is, to be sure, a leader of the other students: "the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself." Any sadism is, at most, implied: "If there is on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in boyhood over the less energetic spirits of its companions." In Poe, Wilson does not try to strangle his doppelganger, nor is he expelled from the school. He approaches the other's bed at night, apparently sees his own face on the sleeping boy and "passed silently from the chamber, and left at once, the halls of that old academy, never to enter them again."In Malle's film, Wilson is torturing another student as a snowball fight rages in the background. The doppelganger makes his first appearance by hitting Wilson with a snowball. The snow fight, the torture, the significant hit by a snowball, the expulsion from school are not in Poe's tale.But all these elements ARE in Jean Cocteau's novel LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES. The snowball fight not only is featured in Jean-Pierre Melville's film of the novel, but Cocteau filmed the scene earlier in his own BLOOD OF A POET. The torture is briefly in Melville's film, but described more fully in the novel: "By the spasmodic flaring of the gas lamp he could be seen to be a small boy with his back against the wall, hemmed in by his captives...One of these...was squatting between his legs and twisting his ears...Weeping, he sought to close his eyes, to avert his head. But every time he struggled, his torturer seized a fistful of gray snow and scrubbed his ears with it." As the snow fight continues, Cocteau's iconic character Dargelos throws a snowball that hits another student and puts in motion the events of the novel/film.Dargelos is the same sort of malignant leader of his schoolmates as Malle's young Wilson. The headmaster calls his influence on his classmates unhealthy, and after an outrageous act he is expelled from the school. Even more to the point, Dargelos has a doppelganger in the form of the character Agathe. In Melville's film Dargelos and Agathe are played by same person, and their mysterious resemblance is important to the story.All of these added Cocteau elements are so strong that one assumes that Malle intended viewers to recognize the reference.

airynellie I didn't care for "Metzengerstein" that much at all (in a nut-shell: Jane Fonda's character walking around in strange, skimpy outfits, chasing after her cousin whenever she wasn't at an orgy), but the next two were great. "Toby Dammit" was definitely the most disturbing movie of the trio, but the cinematography was incredibly beautiful; I'd give it a 10 just for that. But I liked the "William Wilson" segment the most, and I would (and have) watched it again and again just to see Alain Delon, who was at the peak of his exotic beauty in this film. A plus is that, in "William Wilson," he didn't have the regulation tan all the good-looking actors of the time seemed to maintain. I personally always thought that the tan detracted somewhat from his looks, making him look less unique, less refined. Come to think of it, there are actually two pluses when it comes to Delon -- he looks like a porcelain, icy angel, and he gets to put that expressive face to work for a very welcome change, instead of going through almost the entire movie with a stony expression (think "The Sicilian Clan").

rooprect It's reassuring to see that other IMDb reviewers have had the good sense to pan this disappointing film, at the risk of blaspheming against the great Vadim, Malle and Fellini.These directors may be talented & artistic in their own right; however in attempting to pass off this hodgepodge of attempted eroticism and 60s chic as *in any way* related to Edgar Allen Poe's stories, they exposed themselves as frauds. Either (A) they didn't bother to read the Poe stories, or (B) they read them but were so transfixed by their own egotistical agenda that they didn't pay Poe any mind.Imagine if Metallica plugged in their guitars, cranked the amps up to 11 and moshed out 3 chords claiming it to be Beethoven's 9th Symphony. That's the feeling you'll get after sitting through this film. If you're a Vadim/Malle/Fellini fan (Metallica), you'll dig it. If you're a Beethoven fan (Poe), you'll puke.METZERGENSTEIN...Here we begin with a bizarre porno version of Poe. OK, "porno" may be a bit extreme haha, but at the very least you have to call it a Barbarella version (including, I don't doubt, some of Jane's outfits coming directly from the set of that scifi romp). Vadim falls into old clichés of his own: the girl lying on a bed being pleasured by some man whilst from the pillow-cam we see the apathy in her eyes; the general lassitude and ennui of a woman who finds no satisfaction in hedonism. Cute stuff, but "Metzergenstein" ain't the place for it. And in addition to the Barbarella outfits and irrelevant erotic themes, Jane Fonda's awful American accent and unconvincing performance as a European countess made this the worst casting since Julia Roberts in that lousy version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.WILLIAM Wilson...Here's a great Poe story about the madness that claims a man when he realizes that he is no longer unique in the world. If you really want to see a fantastic visual interpretation of this theme, go watch Star Trek episode #27 "The Alternative Factor". But here, Malle glazes over that central theme and instead focuses on... any guesses...? yup, eroticism, sadism and debauchery. Ho hum. Brigitte Bardot's role is a complete fabrication to accomplish that end, and once again the director distorts a classic Poe story into a masturbatory catharsis of his own unrequited sexual issues. Do it on your own time, Malle. I thought we're here on Poe's dime.TOBY DAMMIT....The absolute worst of the three and possibly the worst film I've seen since "Staying Alive". At least Fellini showed some tact in changing the title, but his departure from the original plot, theme and humour of the story is so vast, I wonder if he just picked this reel out of his private collection of home movies, stamped "Edgar Allen Poe story" on it and submitted it to this collection. I strained very hard to find any thread of familiarity with Poe's works, but there was absolutely none.The original Poe story ("Never Bet the Devil Your Head") is a short and hilarious dark fable about a man who constantly exclaims "I'll bet the devil my head..." On a foggy morning, the devil takes him up on his offer. The result is the sickest and silliest thing you've ever read. This was Poe, the comedian, at his finest (yes, Poe wrote many comedies. Also check out "A Predicament" and "Devil in the Belfry" if you want a taste of his witty, satirical works).This Fellini version? It's bland, soulless, and not funny at all (unless you consider it funny to see a drunk stumbling over himself for 45 minutes). Here Fellini's egotistical rant is about an artist struggling with the hypocrisy, pretense and mediocrity of cinema. Most of it is set at an awards ceremony where Fellini beats us over the head with sarcasm, cynicism and that classic "sour grapes" attitude that we find in all Fellini films dealing with cinema. Note the sarcastic jabs at "the critics", a recurring theme in Fellini's films. For someone who considered himself above the critics, Fellini sure spent a lot of time talking about them. At any rate, I feel like Fellini just took some outtakes from 8 1/2, spliced them together and sold it as a Poe story. Worst "adaptation" ever.I think I put more effort into typing this review than any of the three directors put into making a Poe movie.