The Ninth Gate

The Ninth Gate is a 1999 neo-noir horror thriller film directed, produced, and co-written by Roman Polanski. An international co-production between the United States, Portugal, France, and Spain, the film is loosely based upon Arturo Pérez-Reverte's 1993 novel The Club Dumas. The film stars Johnny Depp as a dealer of rare books who is tasked with authenticating a 17th-century book that purportedly contains a magical secret for summoning the Devil. The premiere showing was at San Sebastián, Spain, on 25 August 1999, a month before the 47th San Sebastian International Film Festival. Though critically and commercially unsuccessful in North America, where reviewers compared it unfavorably with Polanski's supernatural film Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Ninth Gate earned a worldwide gross of $58.4 million against a $38 million budget. Plot Dean Corso, a New York City rare book dealer, is hired by wealthy collector Boris Balkan. Balkan has acquired a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, a book by 17th-century author Aristide Torchia said to be able to summon the Devil. Torchia is alleged to have written the book in collaboration with the Devil, and only three copies survived when he and his works were burned for heresy. Balkan believes only one of the three is authentic and wants Corso to inspect the other two to determine which one. During his travels, Corso comes into contact with a mysterious woman ("The Girl") who appears to be following him. Corso interviews Liana Telfer, the widow of Andrew Telfer who sold Balkan The Nine Gates shortly before killing himself. Telfer later seduces Corso, hoping he will sell the book to her. After they have sex, and he refuses to sell, she attacks him, and knocks him unconscious. The next day, Corso goes to a bookseller he had entrusted the book to and finds him hanged in his store like an engraving in The Nine Gates. Corso retrieves the book and travels to Toledo, Spain, to speak to the Ceniza Brothers, book restorers who owned Balkan's copy before the Telfers. The two show him that, of the book's nine engravings, only six are signed "A.T."; the other three are signed "L.C.F." for Lucifer.