An early French miniseries that held all Gaul in thrall lives again in “Belphegor: Phantom of the Louvre,” a bigscreen update of the spooky four-part mystery that ran in B&W on the country’s first TV channel in 1965. Sophie Marceau starrer, about an imposing entity that haunts the Louvre by night, is affectionate, genuinely suspenseful and designed to entertain, with an admirable mix of state-of-the-art digital effects with the guy-in-a-rubber-suit tradition. Built-in name recognition is sky-high in France, where pic opened Wednesday, but marketing may prove more of a challenge offshore — except, perhaps, in Japan, where Marceau enjoys a fan base devoted enough to rebuild the pyramids.
New version is freely inspired by the work by Arthur Bernede (1871-1937), who co-founded one of the early French movie serial companies and wrote one of the form’s most celebrated examples, “Judex” (1916), for helmer Louis Feuillade. A silent “Belphegor,” directed by Henri Desfontaines in 1927, drew a then-record 1 million admissions.
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In 1965, French theaters and restaurants were empty on Saturday nights for four weeks running as the TV version kept 20 million viewers riveted to the country’s then 6.5 million sets. (The series was sold to 17 countries.)
The challenge of remaining true to fond collective memories, while lending a patina of contempo plausibility to a fundamentally ridiculous story, is met without an ounce of pretension. In previous versions, the ghost was a ruse to distract the museum’s guards while nogoodniks absconded with artistic loot. In current version, an errant entity — whose remains are rediscovered by digging to install I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid — seeks eternal rest via key accessories that once dwelled in Egypt.
While a sophisticated scanner determines the remains in a sarcophagus to be exactly 3,512 years old, a spectral entity escapes from the mummy and slips into an electrical outlet, sending the Louvre’s electrical devices haywire. The museum’s director (Jean-Francois Balmer) summons prominent Egyptologist Glenda Spencer (Julie Christie, speaking impeccable French) of the British Museum.
An autopsy reveals somebody poisoned the mummified male and sabotaged his funeral, a compound bummer in terms of the afterlife. However, a fragment of fabric enables specialists to re-create the funerary cloak that, with a mask, identifies Belphegor as surely as Batman with his mask and cape.
Across the street from the museum lives Lisa (Marceau) with her feisty grandmother (veteran Patachou, in an endearingly spunky perf).
While following a stray cat, Lisa discovers it’s possible to surreptitiously enter the Louvre. She ends up in the lab, where she makes the mistake of looking at the mummy and receives the same demonic bolt of evil energy that, in the film’s “Exorcist”-like prologue, possessed an eminent archaeologist circa 1935.
Lisa starts sleepwalking to the museum, donning the Belphegor costume and gliding through the galleries, helping herself to specific amulets.
When the Louvre’s head of security plunges to his death, retired detective Verlac (Michel Serrault, adding instant class with a touch of self-aware eccentricity) moves into the museum to confront the phantom.
There’s a neat reference to the TV series, from which B&W footage is employed in a flashback about Belphegor wreaking havoc in the mid-’60s, and iconic chanteuse Juliette Greco (the series’ title demon) enjoys a cute, wordless cameo.
Pic displays a peppy, enjoyable rhythm — editor Sylvie Landra works regularly with Luc Besson — and feels like an adventure film, only on a human scale. Elegantly spooky, with just enough humor, venture might seem tame compared to Brendan Fraser starrer “The Mummy,” but there’s a goofy intelligence at work in this script.
Helmer Jean-Paul Salome’s third pic — after the robbery comedy “Girls With Guns” (Les braqueuses, 1994) and the French tourists stranded in America romp “Restons groupes” (1998) — is the first feature ever permitted to lense on location in the Louvre.
Score by the ubiquitous Bruno Coulais is daintily sinister.
