After the tremendous popular success of the
　　Fantômas novels, both of the major French
　(🥀)　film studios — Pathé and Gaumont —
　　vied for the rights to produce films based
　(🥊)　on the series. Gaumont won, and from
　　(💏)April 1913 to May 1914 Louis Feuillade
　　directed five Fantômas films which critic
　(🛌)　David Thomson has described as "the first
　　great movie experience."