Bluebeard Adaptations and Reimaginings in Film
Bluebeard films: I was not prepared. My watchlist is overflowing. I don’t have enough hours in one life. I’ve realised while compiling the books and films for the Bluebeard posts that Yelen and Yelena is also a Bluebeard story. He has a room filled with the bodies of those who failed to break the curse, and made it to about six or seven in the 120 years that the rose bloomed.
There aren’t a lot of monster fuckers out there, but there are enough. It’s called the Rot Room.
So here we are with a few other BatB crossovers in the adaptations, and I wish I could find more! But this is probably enough for now!?
We’ve got serial killers galore – not all after their own wives – millionaire playboys, dodgy blokes set up as ‘romantic heroes’ amid a field of red flags, animations, claymation, you name it. I left off a Warner Bros cartoon with Porky Pig that is a Bluebeard story, but even Porky got to be in a Bluebeard adaptation. So did Red Ryder, in Texas Manhunt/Phantom of the Plains (1945), a 56min Western in which Ryder tries to convince a Duchess her new beau has a habit of murdering his wives. I’m mentioning that here rather than linking below as well.
Here’s one Letterboxd list that includes a few noir films I’m not sure about, but may fit the bill, and a few comedies like Hiss and Yell (1946).
I’ve given up on trying to order these so you’ve got them in chronological order from 1901-2023.
Not all the films with the title ‘Bluebeard’ set out to be faithful to the story, of course, but they all play with and nod to it. I’ve not seen them all! Intermixed with these are films that definitely have some sort of Bluebeard theme in there, and I’m including adaptations of classic novels Jane Eyre and Rebecca for this reason.
However: I absolutely refuse to include ALL the adaptations of Jane Eyre because the first one was 1910, that’s right, 1910, and then there are MILLIONS of them after that. Ok, not millions, 19. Still too many. But this includes the Indian and Greek ones, plus all the miniseries versions. Check here where someone has ranked all 19 different versions: https://letterboxd.com/loureviews/list/ranking-the-jane-eyre-films/.
The above graphic is the films ranked by that viewer’s preference, 1 being their favourite, and 19 being the least favourite, although they all got 3 stars or above.
(I personally would give an extra star for the Greek phonetic spelling of her name. Τζέιν Έιρ (1968) didn’t make it into a Greek film I don’t think?? I think it’s still set in England, with the characters just being Greek speaking, but not sure.)
I can only find about 5 versions of Rebecca on Letterboxd, although I wasn’t looking too hard. There’s Hitchcock’s classic version (1940), Simon Langton’s version (1979), Jim O’Brien’s version with Charles Dance (1997), Francesca Zambella’s version which sticks pretty closely to the original novel (2006), and Ben Wheatley’s most recent version for Netflix (2020). I’ve put some of these below.
Barbe-bleue / Bluebeard (1901) dir. Georges Méliès – [Silent Film] A young woman becomes the eighth wife of the wealthy Bluebeard, whose first seven wives have died under mysterious circumstances.
You can watch this one on YouTube, it’s pretty short (around 10mins runtime)! I’ve linked one below with background piano music.
Barbe-bleue / Bluebeard (1936) dir. Jean Painlevé, René Bertrand – Perrault’s fairy tale presented in claymation with choral voices.
Bluebeard goes courting, all six of his wives having died. He arrives at the house of a widow with two daughters. He’s greatly feared, but he overcomes objections with a generous dowry. One sister (Anne) refuses him; the other accepts. At his castle, the damsel delights in precious minutes away from Bluebeard in the rose garden. The Saracens declare war; Bluebeard goes off to fight them, leaving the keys to the castle in the damsel’s hands. He warns her not to enter the forbidden room. As war rages, she discovers riches in the castle and then enters the forbidden room.
Will Bluebeard discover her act? Can she escape death?
Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) dir. Ernst Lubitsch – HE MARRIED IN HASTE AND REPEATED IN PLEASURE! American multi-millionaire Michael Brandon marries his eighth wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broken French Marquis. But she doesn’t want to be only a number in the row of his ex-wives and starts her own strategy to tame him.
Rebecca (1940) dir. Alfred Hitchcock – THE SHADOW OF THIS WOMAN DARKENED THEIR LOVE. Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier. The young wife must come to grips with the terrible secret of her handsome, cold husband, Max De Winter. She must also deal with the jealous, obsessed Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who will not accept her as the mistress of the house.
This is currently on YouTube and linked below:
Jane Eyre (1943) dir. Robert Stevenson – A LOVE STORY EVERY WOMAN WOULD DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS TO LIVE! After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house to care for his young daughter.
This is currently on YouTube and linked below:
Bluebeard (1944) dir. Edgar G. Ulmer – THE MOST SINISTER LOVE STORY EVER TOLD! Young female models are being strangled. Will law enforcement be able to stop the crime wave before more women become victims?
This is currently on YouTube and linked below:
Secret Beyond the Door (1947) dir. Fritz Lang – SOME MEN DESTROY WHAT THEY LOVE MOST!
After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly a second thought. She finds his New York home full of his strange relations, and macabre rooms that are replicas of famous murder sites. One locked room contains the secret to her husband’s obsession, and the truth about what happened to his first wife.
This is currently on YouTube and also available to buy/rent:
Barbe-bleue / Bluebeard (1951) dir. Christian-Jaque – [This is a comedy, not too raunchy because it’s the 1950s, but you can probably guess the twist a mile away.]
Just before wowing international critics and moviegoers with his adventure romp Fanfan la Tulipe, director Christian-Jaque dashed off the lampoonish Barbe-Bleue. Ostensibly the story of the famed wife-killing potentate Bluebeard (Pierre Brasseur), this lighthearted costumer begins as the title character is poised to march down the matrimonial aisle for the eighth time. Barbe-Bleue’s newest spouse Aline (Cécile Aubry) is kept in line by her husband’s claims of murdering her predecessors. But when Aline opens the famous locked door to the equally famous hidden room, both she and the audience are in for quite a surprise. The frivolous nature of Barbe-Bleue is underlined by its pleasing utilization of the French Gezacolor process.
This is currently on YouTube and linked below, but it’s in the original French without subtitles. If you read French better than you hear it, there’s a transcript, but it’s auto-generated and imperfect:
Sangdil (1950) dir. R. C. Talwar – A loose adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s classic, Jane Eyre. In this version childhood sweethearts are separated and grow up in different worlds. The girl is brought up to be a ‘pujaaran’ (priestess) while the boy grows up to be a dejected ‘thakur’, turned vindictive by life’s injustices. Fate inevitably brings them together at a later juncture, and all seems happy and perfect for the young couple, until she discovers his deep, dark secret.
Bluebeard’s 10 Honeymoons (1960) dir. W. Lee Wilder – THE MAN WITH THE DO-IT-YOURSELF MURDER KIT! A murderer enriches his finances by marrying and then killing off a series of wealthy women.
Landru/Bluebeard (1963) dir. Claude Chabrol – THE MOST SHOCKING SCANDAL PARIS EVER SAW!
Paris, France, during the First World War. While thousands of soldiers die every day on the battlefields, Henri Landru, a seemingly respectable furniture dealer, married and father of four children, relentlessly feeds his own sinister factory of death.
One Letterboxd review describes it better than the blurb does:
One of the few features of famed French director Claude Chabrol that doesn’t take place primarily in his beloved French countryside, “Landru” is nonetheless another typical middle class satire for which he was renowned. The ease with which somebody as deranged as the protagonist manages to find and con so many seemingly smart and educated women, and his confidence that he can get away with it because of his status as a respectable and erudite family man, are a none-too-subtle metaphor for the ease with which French society falls victim to charismatic politicians and business leaders who are later exposed as frauds. Despite the gruesomeness of Verdu’s crimes Chabrol’s ironic humor doesn’t let the mood become too grim.
Letterboxd User Panos75: https://letterboxd.com/panos75/film/bluebeard-1963/
Herzog Blaubarts Burg/Bluebeard’s Castle (1963) dir. Michael Powell – Based on the Béla Bartók opera, Duke Bluebeard reluctantly and gradually uncovers the secrets of his psyche to his fourth wife, Judit, opening the seven doors of his castle to ultimately reveal his still living previous wives, among whom Judit must take her place.
I actually love this and the way it’s shot and staged, and the scenery and the music. I haven’t seen it live but I would really like to.
कोहरा/Kohraa (1964) dir. Biren Nag – In this re-imagining of Du Maurier’s Rebecca, a recently wed woman discovers the ghost of her husband’s first wife still haunts their home.
Bluebeard (1972) dir. Edward Dmytryk – [Starring Richard Burton!] HE HAD A WAY WITH THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL, MOST SEDUCTIVE, MOST GLAMOROUS WOMEN …HE DID AWAY WITH THEM.
Baron von Sepper is an Austrian aristocrat noted for his blue-toned beard, and his appetite for beautiful wives. His latest spouse, an American beauty named Anne, discovers a vault in his castle that’s filled with the frozen bodies of several beautiful women.
La dernière femme de Barbe Bleue / Bluebeard’s Last Wife (1996) dir. Aleksandr Bubnov – [Animation] A new version of the famous story about Bluebeard. Two characters – killers from different eras, from different myths – decide to start a family. Who will win in a deadly duel? Another attempt to get married will be the last for the hero…
Rebecca (1997) dir. Jim O’Brien – Based on the Gothic romance novel by Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca is a classic tale of love and hate. Maxim De Winter marries a woman half his age only a year after his first wife, the beautiful and accomplished Rebecca, dies. She finds herself in an aristocratic social world her middle class upbringing did not prepare her for, and housekeeper Mrs Danvers despises her for taking her darling Rebecca’s place. But these are not the only problems to face…
Barbe Bleue / Bluebeard (2009) dir. Catherine Breillat – Anne (Daphné Baiwir) reads her younger sister, Marie-Catherine (Lola Créton), the story of Bluebeard. In 17th-century France, another set of sisters — also named Anne and Marie-Catherine — are left impoverished by their father’s death. Marie-Catherine dreams of marrying into money, and soon falls for wealthy divorcé Bluebeard (Dominique Thomas). Grateful for the chance at a life of comfort, Marie-Catherine marries Bluebeard — in spite of rumors that he has made a hobby of murdering his wives.
La piel que habito/The Skin I Live In (2011), dir. Pedro Almodóvar – A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.
This is one Almodóvar film I haven’t seen – medical horror/surgical horror genuinely freaks me out and his directing style gets under my skin so that’s not a combination I really want to cope with. However, it was recommended as a Bluebeard film! So I shall put it here and let people discuss!
A Good Marriage (2014) dir. Peter Askin – Based on the Stephen King novella.
TWO CAN KEEP A SECRET… IF ONE OF THEM IS DEAD.
After 25 years of a good marriage, what will Darcy do once she discovers her husband’s sinister secret?
Ex Machina (2015) dir. Alex Garland – THERE IS NOTHING MORE HUMAN THAN THE WILL TO SURVIVE. Caleb, a coder at the world’s largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world’s first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
Crimson Peak (2015) dir. Guillermo del Toro – LOVE MAKES MONSTERS OF US ALL. In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds… and remembers.
This is the best version of Bluebeard for me. It’s just so good. I really want a rich, lush, dark fantasy version – like the Beauty and the Beast treatment of a gorgeous, stunning Gothic mausoleum of a castle, and the gore and horror of Bluebeard. The closest thing I’ve found so far is this one.
Kékszakállú, (2016), dir. Gastón Solnicki – An unconventional portrayal of several young women witnessed in immersive yet indeterminate states: within their bodies, among their friends and lovers, and ultimately in a culture of economic and spiritual recession. Obliquely inspired by Bela Bartok’s sole opera, Bluebeard’s Castle.
해빙 / Bluebeard, (2017) Lee Soo-Youn – A BEAST EXISTS WITHIN US ALL.
A doctor finds himself in the middle of an unsolved serial murder case after discovering a secret from a sedated patient. When dismembered bodies show up close to home, he must solve the riddle before the killer realizes what he knows.
Beast (2017) dir. Michael Pearce – I already put this as a BatB version, but there’s a lot of overlap and I think it fits the Bluebeard theme better! So here it is again!
A troubled woman living in an isolated community finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders.
Tau (2018) dir. Federico D’Alessandro – NO BARS. NO GUARDS. NO ESCAPE. Held captive in a futuristic smart house, a woman hopes to escape by befriending the A.I. program that controls the house.
Ok, I’m including this as the “bride” figure wakes up as an experiment in the secret dungeon of Alex (Ed Skrein), only to find that his experiments do not survive and she’s not the first. She is determined to be the last. But actually, the real bride figure is Tau, the AI servant, voiced by Gary Oldman. Tau’s “door” it mustn’t open is one of wider knowledge and understanding of the outside world and of itself, and an understanding that Alex, its master, is not a ‘good’ person. Julia (Maika Monroe) is the one who helps Tau to open it, and save them both through its ability to make new decisions.
Ready or Not (2019) dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett – IN-LAWS CAN BE MURDER. A bride’s wedding night takes a sinister turn when her eccentric new in-laws force her to take part in a terrifying game.
I’d say this one counts as it has the innocent bride discovering a grisly secret about her husband and the family she is marrying into. Anyone who marries into the family must play a game, and sometimes that game is … deadly.
Rebecca (2020) dir. Ben Wheatley – [They weirdly made this a romance… it’s not actually romantic as a story, but ok] After a whirlwind romance with a wealthy widower, a naïve bride moves to his family estate but can’t escape the haunting shadow of his late wife.
The Invitation (2022) – YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO A NIGHTMARE GENERATIONS IN THE MAKING. After the death of her mother, Evie is approached by an unknown cousin who invites her to a lavish wedding in the English countryside. Soon, she realizes a gothic conspiracy is afoot and must fight for survival as she uncovers twisted secrets in her family’s history.
This one counts as well – there’s a wedding and the dark history of the family, which definitely includes bloody murder.
Ile Owo/House of Money (2022) dir. Dare Olaitan – Busola has forever been unlucky with love. Pressured by society and her parents to tie the knot as a means to lift her family out of poverty, she finally meets Tunji – the perfect man. At first, Busola struggles to understand why a billionaire would choose to marry her, but after she accepts his proposal of marriage, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead her to a truth she could never have imagined.
I loved this one. It’s a ‘strange suitor’ folktale type, and has that dark adult fairytale feel. I absolutely love Busola’s mum, who tries so hard to keep Busola safe while the men in the story – including her own father – force her into terrible situations.
കുമാരി / Kumari (2022) dir. Nirmal Sahadev – Kumari is married off to Dhruvan of Kanjirangattu Tharavadu, a cursed land beyond Illmayi, in the west. As Kumari finds her comfort zone in her new family which is heavy with mystery, myths and superstitions, she also realizes that the people over there are blinded by faith and sorcery, ready to sacrifice their lives to preserve tradition, prosperity and peace.
This one was a good watch and really uncomfortable in places, genuinely creepy and tense in others. I really enjoyed it. The whole family are in on the dark secret here, much like Ready or Not, but the slow descent of Dhruvan is the worst thing to watch because you can see it’s going to get really bad for her by the end. I really liked the climax and the whole story.
Poll
Vote below for the next story!
Leave a Reply