La Hantise (1912)
Directed by Louis Feuillade

Film Review

Until 1998, La Hantise (a.k.a. The Obsession) had the distinction of being the earliest surviving film to reference the sinking of the Titanic.  Prior to this, there had been two other films featuring the disaster - Étienne Arnaud's Saved From the Titanic, released just 29 days after the fateful night on 16th April 1912 when the liner sank - and Mime Misu's In Nacht und Eis, released in August 1912.  The second of these films was unearthed in 1998 and predates the release of Louis Feuillade's La Hantise by two months.  In Feuillade's film, the Titanic disaster is referenced but is not central to the plot, which might explain why it is often omitted in lists of Titanic movies.

The film is modest for Feuillade - no chases, criminal intrigue, shoot-outs or grand set-pieces, just a quiet melodrama that sets out to debunk the then popular craze of chiromancy.  It features two of the biggest stars in the director's company of actors, Renée Carl and René Navarre, the latter of whom would go on to become world renowned the following year as the central villain in Feuillade's Fantômas series of films.  In La Hantise, we see a very different Navarre to the stony faced villain he is best known for playing, a gentle family man with a mild phobia for transatlantic crossings.  Feuillade's favourite actress, Renée Carl could always be relied upon to turn in a totally convincing performance, and here, as the mother driven to distraction by her obsessive belief in a palm-reading, she does not disappointment.  Despite some dodgy model work (the Titanic looks uncannily like a toy boat in a bath) and the fact that one crucial sequence near the end of the film is missing, La Hantise still manages to be an absorbing drama.

Film Synopsis

At a soirée, Madame Trévoux encounters the fashionable palmist Josepha de Delphes and allows her to read her fortune in her hand.  Madame Trévoux is shocked when the palmist tells her that one of her loved ones is to die shortly.  Who shall it be - her devoted husband Jean or their infant son?  It so happens that Jean Trévoux must undertake a trip to America and has booked a berth on RMS Titanic.  When the liner sinks after striking an iceberg Madame Trévoux fears that the palmist's prediction has come true.  But then she receives a telegram from her husband letting her know that he is safe and well.  A terrible obsession grips Madame Trévoux when she realises that it is her son who is to die...