Taglines: Beyond Reason! Beyond Belief!
Blood and Roses movie storyline. Set in the modern day at a European estate, Carmilla is torn emotionally by the engagement of her friend Georgia to her cousin Leopoldo. It is hard to tell for whom she has the strongest unrequited emotions. During the masquerade ball celebrating the upcoming marriage, a fireworks display accidentally explodes some munitions lost at the site in World War II, disturbing an ancestral catacomb.
Carmilla wearing the dress of her legendary vampire ancestor wanders into the ruins, where the tomb of the ancestor opens slowly. Carmilla returns to Leopoldo’s estate as the last guests depart. Over next few days she proceeds to act as though possessed by the spirit of the vampire and a series of vampiric killings terrorize the estate.
Blood and Roses (French: Et Mourir de Plaisir) is a horror film directed by Roger Vadim. It stars Mel Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, Annette Vadim, René-Jean Chauffard, Marc Allégret, Alberto Bonucci, Serge Marquand, Gabriella Farinon, Renato Speziali, Edith Peters, Giovanni Di Benedetto, Carmilla Stroyberg and Nathalie LeForet. It is based on the novella Carmilla (1872) by Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, shifting the book’s setting in 19th-century Styria to the film’s 20th-century Italy.
About the Story
The ancestral von Karnsteins were rumored to be vampires. So strong was that belief that the peasants revolted in 1765 and, led by the village priest, invaded the Karnstein cemetery, drove stakes through the hearts of all the inhabitants and burned every corpse.
“One survived,” Carmilla von Karnstein [Elsa Martinelli] tells the story while pointing to a portrait hanging on the wall. “Don’t you think I look like her?” The lady in question is Millarca von Karnstein, saved on the eve of the massacre by her cousin and lover Ludwig von Karnstein who swore undying love for Millarca. But Ludwig proved to be unfaithful. Over their lifetimes, he became engaged to three women. Each of them died shortly before the wedding.
“If Millarca were to return, how do you think she would feel about me?” asks Georgia Monte Verdi [Annette Vadim], fiancée of Carmilla’s cousin Leopoldo von Karnstein [Mel Ferrer]. “After all, doesn’t (Leopoldo) resemble Ludwig von Karnstein? Will she kill me like the others?”
“Maybe this time she has come back for Ludwig,” says Carmilla. Leopoldo breaks in. “Carmilla, enough,” he says, “you are frightening Georgia. You play the game too well.”
Whether it is a game or whether Carmilla believes the story, it is obvious that she is in love with Leopoldo, so much that she arrives late to his engagement party. She also arrives in Millarca’s white wedding dress, much to the dismay of all who know the Karnstein history. When fireworks set off from the deserted family cemetery accidentally ignite ammunition left by the Germans, Carmilla is drawn to Mircalla’s unearthed crypt.
An exchange of souls seems to take place. The sight of Carmilla now makes animals frightened, flowers wither in her cold hands, she recognizes 17th century music, the sun hurts her. Each night Carmilla goes to Millarca’s grave to rest. One night she is spotted by one of the hired hands. The next morning, a young servant is found dead. Talk of vampirism begins, and suspicion falls on Carmilla.
When the wedding plans are suddenly moved from the family estate to Venice, Carmilla seems to snap. The next morning, Georgia awakens with two bites on her neck and memories of Carmilla attacking her. That afternoon, as the army detonates the remaining ammunition left by the Germans in the Karnstein cemetery, Carmilla is blown off a cliff and becomes staked on a tree branch. The diagnosis is that Carmilla escaped into a dream world where she became Mircalla and that she hoped, by killing Georgia, to become the one loved by Leopoldo.
Blood and Roses (1960)
Directed by: Roger Vadim
Starring: Mel Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, Annette Vadim, René-Jean Chauffard, Marc Allégret, Alberto Bonucci, Serge Marquand, Gabriella Farinon, Renato Speziali, Edith Peters, Giovanni Di Benedetto, Carmilla Stroyberg, Nathalie LeForet
Screenplay by: Claude Brulé, Claude Martin, Roger Vadim
Production Design by: Michel Choquet, Piero Cocco
Cinematography by: Claude Renoir
Film Editing by: Victoria Mercanton
Costume Design by: Marcel Escoffier
Set Decoration by: Robert Christidès
Art Direction by: Jean André, Robert Guisgand
Music by: Jean Prodromides
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures (United States and France)
Release Date: September 14, 1960 (France), January 1961 (Rome)
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