Nuits Rouges (lit. Red Nights, in French) is a 1974 French-Italian crime thriller film directed by Georges Franju. The film was released in the U.S. in an English-dubbed version by New Line Cinema under the title Shadowman in 1975.
It is an adaptation of a 1973 French-Italian-Yugoslav TV mini-series titled "L'Homme sans visage" (The Man Without a Face).[5]
Premise
Paul de Borrego is a scholar whose field of research is the history of Templars. His discoveries are used by a criminal organisation led by the mysterious Faceless Man to help the latter expand his army of killers composed of people with dead brains.
Nuits Rouges was filmed in 1973.[6] The film is a 100-minute theatrical version of a film originally commissioned for television.[6] The budget for the film was so modest that Franju had to film all interiors of the film on a studio set.[7]
Jacques Champreux (Louis Feuillade's grandson[8]) who plays one the lead roles, had directed the series that inspired the film. He also had worked on Franju's Judex, which was also based on a film series.[9]
Nuits Rouges was released on November 20, 1974, in France.[11]
Reception
Nuits Rouges received mixed and even mocking reviews from French critics on its release.[12]Nuits Rouges was released on DVD in the United Kingdom as part of Eureka's Masters of Cinema series along with another film by Georges Franju, Judex (1963) in 2008.[13]
