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 Fantô(💁)mas films which critic
　(🛌)　(🍾)David Thomson has described as "the first
　　great movie experience."