Two years after his last caper, master criminal and master of disguise Fantomas (Jean Marais) returns with his biggest and bestest scheme to date: Tax the rich on their right to live, under penalty of execution! This he poses to the world’s third-wealthiest man, Lord MacRashley (Jean-Roger Caussimon, The Return of Dr. Mabuse), who’s not too keen on the idea.

Consulting with his sick-money buddies the world over, MacRashley decides to use his supposedly haunted castle as a trap to snare Fantomas, with Commissioner Juve (Louis de Funès), journalist Fandor (also Marais) and Fandor’s fiancée (Mylène Demongeot) as bait …

… which sounds all fine and dandy, except it soon becomes clear that perhaps this was done for budgetary reasons, to keep the story confined to one location, clearing the way for a series of sequences — a séance, a fox hunt and business about hunting bedsheet ghosts — for Juve to bumble his way through. This effectively shoves Fandor to the sidelines as the film basically bides its time until the last 20 minutes, when they return to the plot so things can take off — even literally, what with Fantomas’ escape rocket.

A limp “FIN” to an otherwise fine trilogy, Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard is a lot like having that third child: Yeah, you love it, but no way are you going to make a baby book this time around. After this one, returning director André Hunebelle and the gang called it quits, which is probably for the best, before a mere trifle became a pure trial. —Rod Lott

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“V” is for Vendetta, but also “vacuous” — the very definition of this routine revenger from Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures.

In her one and only film role, Michelle Newkirk plays Bonnie, a young woman who murders her rapist (Greg Bradford, Zapped!) on the spot, then gets sentenced to two years in the clink for manslaughter. Behind bars, Bonnie refuses to become the bitch of the butch Kay (Sandy Martin, aka Napoleon Dynamite’s Grandma), so the mulleted gang leader has the good girl whacked and jacked with a lethal injection and staged to look like a suicide.

For Bonnie’s big sis, Hollywood stuntwoman Laurie (Karen Chase, Private School), that news is too bitter a pill to swallow. Knowing it’s BS, Laurie embarks on an afternoon crime spree for the sole purpose of being convicted and sent to the same prison so she can take out those responsible for Bonnie’s death. And by gum, her plan works! As Laurie explains to a gigolo during a conjugal visit, it’s all about “achieving honorable justice. That’s bushido.” (Hey, it beats “Did you finish?”)

Chase excels at the physical, but makes a mistake in spouting so many stupid lines with the weight of the world. Martin, however, recognizes the campiness of her dumb dialogue (example: “Look, if I wanted shit from you, I’d pick your teeth!”) and responds by tearing into it whole-hog with a heaping side of relish. A better director would strike a tonal balance between his protagonist and antagonist, but Vendetta has a first-timer in VFX man Bruce Logan (something called Star Wars). Despite erring in performance coaxing, Logan adheres to the rules of the Corman school by filling his film with many explosions and many more bare breasts, as every women-in-prison picture should.

Speaking of, Vendetta marks the final role for Corman regular Roberta Collins, who fatally overdosed two years later. Here, the star of The Big Doll House, Women in Cages and Caged Heat graduates from inmate to guard — and quite admirably acts her tail off. —Rod Lott

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