The Strange Countess (1961)

The Strange Countess (Die seltsame Gräfin), directed by Josef von Báky, is a relatively early entry in Rialto’s wonderful cycle of Edgar Wallace krimis. It was based on Wallace’s 1925 novel of the same name. This is an extremely interesting entry in that cycle.

Margaret Reedle (Brigitte Grothum) is a very ordinary young woman who works in the office of a lawyer named Shaddle. She will soon be leaving this job to take up a position at Canterfield Castle as private secretary to the Countess Moron (Lil Dagover). Yes, Moron. Don’t blame me, that really is her name. Miss Reedle has one more job to do for Mr Shaddle. She has to deliver the release papers for a prisoner named Mary Pinder to a women’s prison. Mary Pinder has been serving a long sentence for murder. She is a poisoner.

Miss Reedle has been getting some strange telephone calls telling her that her time is almost up. She thinks the calls must be coming from a madman. In fact the calls really are being made by a madman. He is Bresset (Klaus Kinski) and he is confined in an asylum but he keeps escaping.

Miss Reedle isn’t worried until someone tries to kill her. There are three attempts made on her life. She has absolutely no idea why anyone would want to kill her. If it hadn’t been for Mike those attempts would have been successful. Mike is Mike Dorn (Joachim Fuchsberger) and Margaret Reedle thinks that he seems like a rather nice man although she is a bit mystified. How does he always manage to turn up at the right moment to save her life?

She hopes that these attempts to kill her will stop when she takes up her new position at Canterfield Castle. Unfortunately she’s wrong.

There’s an uneasy atmosphere at the castle. Everyone there seems a bit strange and they seem like they’re hiding something, which of course they are. The countess is a bit odd. Her son Selwyn (Eddi Arent) is eccentric to say the least. He dreams of going on the stage and spends his free time on mysterious electrical experiments. The butler, Addams, is very sinister. The countess’s financial advisor seems a bit shifty. And then we meet the family doctor, Dr Tappatt (Rudolf Fernau), and he doesn’t seem any too trustworthy.

Quite apart from the odd collection of misfits living at the castle there’s Mike Dorn. He seems trustworthy but Miss Reedle actually knows nothing about him. And there’s still the crazed telephone caller played by Klaus Kinski who just keeps on escaping from the asylum and he is certainly stalking our heroine.

Miss Reedle is no fool but she’s very confused and frightened and we can’t blame her.

It’s a setup that promises plenty of thrills and suspense and The Strange Countess delivers the goods on those fronts.

On the acting side Joachim Fuchsberger was a Krimi regular and was always reliable. Eddi Arent is quite amusing. Klaus Kinski is of course perfect as a murderous madman and he’s in fine creepy form. Brigitte Grothum makes a likeable heroine and gives a very creditable performance.

Even more interesting is the casting of Lil Dagover as the countess. Her remarkable career as a screen actress began in 1916 and lasted until 1979. It included appearances in several very early Fritz Lang movies as well as a starring rôle in one of the great classics of German Expressionism, Robert Wiene’s 1920 The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. And Fritz Rasp, who plays the lawyer Shaddle, had appeared in Lang’s Metropolis in 1927.

These are not the only links to the German Expressionism of the Weimar era. The Strange Countess was shot in the legendary Ufa studio in Berlin.

The horror in this movie (and there is definitely horror in this one) comes not just from the deceptions you expect in a krimi but to an even greater extent from the idea of madness. Many scenes take place in a lunatic asylum. That’s scary enough but what makes it far more chilling is when characters who are not mad end up in the asylum. Some of the characters in this film really are mad, but some have either been deliberately sent mad or made to believe they are mad. Neither Miss Reedle nor the audience can be quite sure which of those categories the other characters fit into. She knows she is not mad but that’s no guarantee she won’t end up in a padded cell in the asylum. Even more terrifying is the thought that she might end up driven to actual madness.

You expect in this sort of movie that at some stage either the hero or the heroine will be locked up by the villain or villains and will have to find a way to escape. In many movies the means of escape prove to be disappointingly contrived but this movie includes a truly ingenious escape.

The Strange Countess is a first-rate krimi with a definite gothic horror vibe and some intriguing nods to the great days of German Expressionism. Highly recommended.

Tobis have provided an excellent transfer on their Blu-Ray release, included in their Edgar Wallace Blu-Ray Edition 6 boxed set. Both English and German language (with English subtitles) options are available for The Strange Countess.

The Student of Prague (1926)

The 1926 German silent horror film The Student of Prague was a remake of the 1913 version. The basic story remains the same but cinema technique had advanced considerably in the interim, and modern audiences will find the 1926 film more accessible.

This version was written and directed by Henrik Galeen and had the considerable additional advantage of having in its cast two of German silent cinema’s great stars, Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss.

Balduin (Conrad Veidt) is a pleasure-loving student who happens to be the finest fencer in Prague. Unhappily he now finds himself penniless. A rather odd character named Scapinelli appears on the scene and tells Balduin that his problems can be solved quite easily. It is merely a matter of signing a simple agreement. Once the document is signed Balduin will find himself exceedingly rich, to the tune of 600,000 gold pieces. And in return all he has to do is to allow Scapinelli to take one item from his room. Balduin eagerly agrees but is somewhat disconcerted when Scapinelli elects to take Balduin’s reflection as his payment.

Balduin is now so rich that he can afford to support a hundred other students. He is soon even more popular than he was before. The only cloud on the horizon is his discovery that his reflection has now taken on a life of its own and this double keeps turning up, causing Balduin both annoyance and a certain growing dread.

A chance encounter with the Countess Margit will have momentous consequences. Balduin saves her life, and then falls in love with her. The countess is betrothed to her cousin Baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg. Inevitably a quarrel ensues between the baron and Balduin, a quarrel that can only be settled by a duel. The baron has no chance whatsoever of surviving an encounter with Balduin. The Countess Margit’s father begs Balduin not to kill the baron. Balduin, being fundamentally a decent fellow agrees, but on the following morning he discovers to his horror that his reflection/double has killed the baron.

Balduin is now on the road to ruin. The countess will not see him, he is expelled from the university and he resorts more and more to drink and gambling. These distractions do not help him. A final encounter with his double will settle his fate one way or the other.

While there was absolutely nothing wrong with Paul Wegener’s performance as Balduin in the 1913 version it has to be admitted that Conrad Veidt’s performance surpasses it. Veidt makes Balduin a truly tragic figure, a man who was basically kind and decent but of course you can’t make a bargain with Satan and expect to get way with it. Werner Krauss is a delightfully plausible yet sinister tempter. It’s the performances of these two actors that make this second film version of the story the superior version. The acting is also on the whole more naturalistic in this 1926 film than in the earlier version.

The most noticeable technical advance in this version is in the much more modern editing. Galeen was a fine director and this 1926 version offers some memorable and nicely chilling imagery.

Alpha Video’s DVD release is one of their better efforts. The picture quality is certainly not fantastic but taking the age of the movie into account it’s acceptable.

Both silent versions of The Student of Prague are excellent in their own ways and horror fans will really want to see both versions. Alpha Video offer a two-movie set including both versions and it’s a very worthwhile buy. Both films demonstrate the artistry of German silent horror films. Highly recommended.

The Student of Prague (1913)

The Student of Prague, made in Germany in 1913, may well have been the very first horror movie ever made. Even if it wasn’t the first it must surely be the oldest horror movie still in existence.

Another silent version of this story was made in Germany in 1926. I haven’t watched that one yet but I intend to do so in the next couple of days.

When viewing a movie from such a very early period in cinema history one is inclined to make allowances. Such early movies usually suffered from very static camera setups and can be inclined to be a bit creaky. In this case however no such allowances need to be made. This is a very fine movie and it compares quite favourably with movies of the later silent era.

Of course it is a silent film and silent films are very very different from sound films. Making movies without dialogue required a particular technique, the use of a purely visual language. Silent films do take a bit of getting used to. It’s worth the effort though, and this is especially so if you’re a fan of horror movies since the silent era produced some of the greatest horror movies  ever made.

The Student of Prague was inspired partly by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story William Wilson although it also draws upon the story of Faust. The movie was written by Hanns Heinz Ewers, a writer who produced a number of bona fide classic horror stories. Paul Wegener, an important figure in the early German film industry, produced and starred in the movie and shared directing credit with Stellan Rye, another important early German film-maker who unfortunately was killed in the First World War.

Balduin (Paul Wegener) is renowned as the finest swordsman and the wildest student in Prague. The setting would appear to be the early or mid-19th century. Balduin is facing financial ruin when he encounters a rather mysterious, slightly sinister and somewhat eccentric-appearing character named Scapinelli (John Gottowt). Unbeknownst to Balduin Scapinelli is a sorcerer and, as we later discover, an agent of Satan. Scapinelli offers Balduin a deal. He will give the penniless student a hundred thousand gold pieces if Balduin will allow him to take one item from his room. The item Scapinelli selects is Balduin’s reflection.

This transaction is a little disturbing but Balduin is glad of the money. He is in love with the Countess Margit Schwarzenberg. She is betrothed to a cousin, the Baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg. As you might expect this situation can have only one outcome - Balduin and the Baron will fight a duel. The countess’s father begs Balduin not to kill the Baron, the Baron being the last of his line. Balduin agrees but the Baron is killed anyway. Not by Balduin, but by Balduin’s reflection.

His reflection has taken on a life of its own and it has been dogging the young student for some time. It is his double, his doppelganger, but it represents the darker side of Balduin’s nature. Balduin, not surprisingly, becomes increasingly agitated and depressed. He tries to distract himself with dancing, drinking and gaming but it is of course no use. His reflection continues to dog his footsteps and it seems that the future for Balduin must hold either madness or destruction.

The movie makes use of surprisingly successful split-screen techniques to allow both Balduin and his evil double to be onscreen at the same time.

The technique of using close-ups and breaking up a scene by cutting to different angles had not yet been developed, and camera setups were static and were confined almost entirely to medium-long shots. This tended to make things rather boring visually. Wegener and Rye deal with these problems very effectively. They do everything they possibly can to maintain the visual interest of the viewer. They use deep compositions with action in both the foreground and the background, they shoot through gateways and doorways, they have actors entering scenes from doors in the background. The end result is that the film does not feel static or dull. In fact, quite the reverse, it’s visually quite impressive.

Expressionism would not appear in German cinema for several years yet but it is clear that German film-makers were already intensely aware of the importance of the visual impact of movies. They were already aware that movies should not look like filmed plays.

This movie is certainly not studio-bound. There is quite a lot of what is clearly location shooting and this again helps to make the movie feel dynamic and fast-paced.

The Alpha Video release appears to be the only DVD release of this movie currently available. With a 41-minute running time the print used was obviously incomplete. A much longer restored version apparently exists but I have been unable to find it on DVD. As you would expect from Alpha the picture quality is pretty rough. I have no idea what the score is like since I find it impossible to endure the scores customarily used on DVD releases of silent movies these days. I simply turn the volume down to zero and concentrate on the images.

The Student of Prague obviously has immense historical interest but it’s also an entertaining and effective horror movie and it’s most certainly worth seeing.

Woman in the Moon (1929)

It’s common knowledge that Fritz Lang was by far the most important early pioneer of the science fiction film, but when most people think of Lang and science fiction they almost certainly think of his 1927 masterpiece Metropolis. This was not however his only science fiction movie, and it was arguably not his most influential. That title belongs to his 1929 production Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond).

The backstory behind this move is as interesting as the movie itself. In the early 20s Hermann Oberth had published a book outlining a scientifically plausible plan for using rocketry to reach the Moon. Lang read the book and was mightily impressed. Impressed enough to want to make a feature film utilising Oberth’s ideas, and Woman in the Moon was the result.

UFA Studios thought it would be a great publicity coup for the film if they spent part of their advertising budget funding Oberth’s researches. Which they did. This was the beginning of serious research into rocketry in Germany. One of Oberth’s students who was involved in the project was a young man named Werner von Braun. Many years later von Braun was to design the Saturn V rocket that took the first US astronauts to the Moon. So it could be argued that Fritz Lang played a crucial early role in the Apollo program to put men on the moon!

The film itself falls into three parts The first part is typical Langian intrigue and paranoia, with the idealistic scientist Dr Helius being manipulated by a sinister cabal of businessmen and financiers who want to use his lunar exploration program for their own commercial ends (driven by rumours of vast gold deposits on the Moon).

The second part involves the actual journey to the Moon, and it’s this second part that qualifies Woman in the Moon as the first science fiction movie to deal with hard science and the first to deal with a realistic and scientifically plausible method of space travel. Dr Helius has designed a three-stage liquid-fueled launch vehicle which is pretty much an early prototype of the actual Saturn V rocket used in the US space program. Escape velocities, the overlapping gravitational fields of the Earth and the Moon, the problems of weightlessness, the need for retro rockets to allow a soft landing on the lunar surface - it’s all there and it’s more realistic than most 1950s space travel movies. Lang even came up with a ingenious solution for weightlessness - the ceilings and floors of the spacecraft are covered in leather straps allowing the astronauts to manoeuvre themselves about inside during periods of weightlessness.

The third part of the movie abandons hard science and becomes a rather far-fetched but exciting adventure melodrama.

It sounds like an uneasy mixture but despite a rather lengthy running time it’s an entertaining movie with major plot elements that ended up being recycled in countless science fiction movies. Land co-wrote the screenplay with his wife Thea von Harbou, based on her novel of the same name. Hermann Oberth was also involved in the writing of the parts of the screenplay dealing with the lunar voyage itself.

Willy Fritsch makes an engaging hero as Dr Helius, ably supported by Gustav von Wangenheim as his not-so-heroic astronaut colleague Hans Windegger and Gerda Maurus as female astronaut Friede Velten (the woman in the moon of the title).

There are some spectacular special effects involving models, animations and some impressive sets. The movie veers between a very realistic and a very stylised and artificial look, a combination that probably only a German film-maker of this era could have pulled off successfully.

The Eureka Region 2 DVD includes a brief but fascinating documentary, and is apparently vastly superior to the Kino Region 1 DVD.

A strange movie in its way, and despite some dark moments one of Lang’s more emotionally warm films. A must for any science fiction movie fan. This, rather than Metropolis, is where movie science fiction really begins.