Toby Dammit
Fellini's episode in the three-part film Spirits of the Dead (Histoires extraordinaires) (the other episodes were directed by Roger Vadim and Louis Malle) is based on the Poe story “Never Bet the Devil Your Head.” Terence Stamp stars as an actor whose trip from a ghostly airport along a nocturnal highway is a masterpiece of modern macabre.
“The great treat of Toby Dammit is that we get to see an extreme visual reality in a short film. The flavor is apocalyptic late sixties...an awake dream of double realities. The modern landscape is riddled with doubt. A horizontal world of airport interiors and television studios is revealed in complex tableau. Crumbling solidities and chaos take on a visceral reality as Rome again begins to burn on the ultra-modern wide, wide screen.” Nathaniel Dorsky