Toby Dammit
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Toby Dammit is a vignette in the French omnibus film Histoires extraordinaires.
Former Shakespearean actor Toby Dammit is losing his acting career as he is tempted by alcohol. He agrees to work on a film where he will be paid with a Ferrari. After helping a young girl who has lost her ball, Dammit begins to have visions of the girl and the ball. After being awarded his Ferrari at a large ceremony, Dammit rushes, inebriated, in his new car. Workers try to get Dammit to stop the car at a fallen bridge across a ravine, but Dammit speeds ahead. When his car reaches the other side, Dammit's head has been cut off by a wire that was stretched across the ravine. The young girl is seen again.
Fellini, Poe and Toby Dammit
Zapponi first met Fellini in July 1967 during pre-production of the Toby Dammit segment in the omnibus film, Histoires extraordinaires after Fellini had abandoned his ambitious project, The Voyage of G. Mastorna. While recovering from a devastating illness (provoked by the Mastorna fiasco), Fellini read Zapponi's Gobal and hoped to convince French producer, Raymond Eger, of financing one of its short stories. The story in question, The Driver, was a macabre tale of a chauffeur demolishing the car he doesn't own. Interested solely in screen adaptations of work by Edgar Allan Poe, Eger rejected the proposal. Fellini then instructed his assistant Liliana Betti to read and summarize all of Poe's tales for him. Although tempted by several stories, it was Never Bet the Devil Your Head with the protagonist Toby Dammit that fired his imagination. Zapponi read a news item while scouting locations with Fellini that concerned the collapsed Ariccia Bridge in the Castelli Romani quarter outside Rome. Visiting the area at night, they were deeply impressed by the bridge's ruined splendor and decided to make it a crucial element in the death of Toby Dammit.
