Never Bet Your Booze
Jan. 16th, 2026 05:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setsuledA drunken Shakespearan actor stumbles into Italy in Federico Fellini's 1968 short film Toby Dammit. Very loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's "Never Bet the Devil Your Head", it serves as a nice companion piece to Fellini's 8 1/2, which was about a director, and Dolce Vita, which was about a paparazzo. This movie covers the actor's perspective with Terence Stamp playing the title character, a man succumbing to alcoholism and in the midst of a media blitz. It's delirious and unnerving.
From the beginning, when we meet Toby on the plane, to when he's stumbling out into the airport, Fellini cuts from one aggressive zoom to another as various bizarre and/or eager objects and faces seem to rush at Toby. He also starts to have visions of a mischievous girl, drawing him towards a grim fate.
Toby Dammit was part of an anthology film that also included segments by Louis Malle and Roger Vadim. For some reason, The Criterion Channel is showing Toby Dammit in isolation. I've seen the Roger Vadim segment, Metzengerstein, at some point but not William Wilson, the Louis Malle story. I strongly suspect Fellini's is the best of the three, though. It's a vigorous assault of ingenious filmmaking.
