The Magician (1926)

The Magician is a 1926 horror melodrama based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same name. It’s a movie that deserves to be better remembered - in fact it’s one of the best American horror movies of the silent era.

Maugham’s novel tells the story of magician Oliver Haddo. The character was based on Aleister Crowley. Maugham had met Crowley and taken an immediate dislike to the man. Crowley was of course a charlatan, although a rather interesting one. 

In the movie Haddo (played by Paul Wegener), an occultist, pseudo-scientist, hypnotist and would-be alchemist, is searching for a magical formula that will enable him to create life. Having found the formula all he needs is the heart blood of a pure maiden, and he finds a suitable victim in the person of sculptress Margaret Dauncey (Alice Terry). Margaret is part of the Parisian artistic avant-garde and moving in such circles it’s perhaps not surprising that she should encounter a dangerous madman like Haddo.

Margaret is engaged to a brilliant young American surgeon, Arthur Burdon (Iván Petrovich), who has saved her from paralysis after a freak accident in her studio. One of her statues, a rather grotesque faun, fell on her and crushed her (in a wonderfully bizarre scene that sets the tone of the picture rather well). Oliver Haddo is determined to prevent this marriage and he uses his hypnotic gifts to persuade Margaret to marry him. Dr Burdon, along with Margaret’s guardian Dr Porhoet (Firmin Gémier), is equally determined to win her back and to save her from the grisly fate Haddo has in store for her.

Irish-born Rex Ingram was one of the great silent film directors. He was never particularly happy with the Hollywood approach to film-making and made many of his movies (most of which starred his wife Alice Terry) outside the US, although still under the MGM banner. Ingram’s career more or less ended with the introduction of talking pictures. 

The Magician features a good deal of location shooting and despite being a silent film it has a surprisingly modern feel to it. Those who avoid silent movies because of the exaggerated acting styles of the period need have no fears with this movie - the acting is extremely naturalistic. 

Even Paul Wegener as the villain resists the temptation to indulge in histrionic gestures and his character is all the scarier for his restraint. Wegener was most famous for his roles in classics of German Expressionist cinema such as The Golem. Alice Terry underplays as well, and does so very effectively.

It’s the visuals that are the heart of the film and Ingram proves himself to be a master in this department. He avoids the extremes of German Expressionism but this film has an abundance of superbly atmospheric and subtly sinister images. The one sequence in which Ingram really lets himself go is a hypnotic dream sequence but despite its excessiveness it works very well without becoming merely silly.

The Magician has all the themes that would soon become such familiar ingredients of the classic horror movie - a mad scientist villain who tries to play God in time-honoured Dr Frankenstein style, with the sort of laboratory that all self-respecting mad scientists should have, a wonderfully gothic sorcerer’s tower, a ghastly experiment carried out at the height of a raging thunderstorm, a damsel in distress, a noble hero determined to save said damsel, a malevolent dwarf assistant for the mad scientist,  and plenty of creepy gothic atmosphere. It’s also remarkably well-paced.

The sets are terrific and the art direction in general is magnificent.

Like so many silent movies this one makes good use of tinting, a technique that sadly went of fashion after the end of the silent era. 

The Warner Archive made-on-demand DVD features a pretty decent print. There’s some print damage but on the whole the image quality is clear and crisp. Considering the age of the film and the fact that it has not been subject to a full-scale restoration it has to be said that it looks exceptionally good.

The Magician is visually stunning and very entertaining. While it’s a genuine horror movie it’s pure melodrama in tone, which is fine by me. A true neglected masterpiece of silent cinema. Highly recommended.

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage, made in 1921, is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Swedish silent cinema. Sjöström is still regarded as a major figure in the history of the Swedish film industry. As a result of the international success of The Phantom Carriage the director was lured to Hollywood where he made a number of highly acclaimed movies.

Of his silent movies made in Sweden only three survive.

Sjöström wrote, directed and starred in The Phantom Carriage. It was based on a novel by Selma Lagerlöf.

The action of the film occurs on successive New Year’s Eves, the basis of the plot being a supposed legend that the last person to die during the course of the year is condemned to drive Death’s carriage for a year. Most of the movie comprises flashbacks telling of the lives, and most importantly the sins, of two men who die on successive New Year’s Eves and who thus become in turn the driver of Death’s cart.

The film begins with a young female Salvation Army officer, Edit (Astrid Holm) dying of consumption. Before she dies she asks to see a man named David Holm. In fact David Holm (played by Sjöström himself) will die on the stroke of midnight but his story is not yet over. He will be forced to relive his wretched life and to confront his sins, which are many.

Holm was a drunkard whose impossible behaviour finally impelled his wife to run away from him, taking their two children. This turns Holm very bitter indeed and he grows to hate the world and everyone in it. As a further complication (which will play a vital role in the story) Holm himself has tuberculosis.

Sister Edit goes to great lengths to try to reform Holm. Her motives are complex since she has (very unwisely) fallen in love with him. Her reform efforts are conspicuously unsuccessful. David dies unreformed and unrepentant but he has a considerable amount of suffering to endure before this night is over.

Those who have problems with the acting styles of silent movies will have few causes for complaint here. Both Sjöström and Astrid Holm (and indeed all the actors) give very naturalistic performances. Sjöström would go on to earn great acclaim as an actor and his performance is certainly powerful.

While modern audiences will be pleasantly surprised by the acting they are likely to have major problems with other aspects of the movie. It is more a moral tale than a horror movie (although of course a movie can be both). The moral tale is the centrepiece though. The movie may also appear, to audiences accustomed to the cynicism and the relentless ironies of modern movies, to be very sentimental. And indeed it is sentimental, although not entirely in a bad way.

The big problem is the pacing which is leisurely to say the least.

On the other hand it’s certainly a visually impressive film. The special effects used had to be done in-camera in 1921 and while they’re mostly just superimpositions done by double exposures they’re done with exceptional skill and they work extremely well. The scenes involving the phantom carriage itself are masterpieces of gothic imagery. Sjöström and his cinematographer Julius Jaenzon created a movie that not only looks incredibly creepy and ominous but more importantly the visuals serve the story rather than being there just for effect.

Tartan Video’s British DVD release looks pretty good considering the age of the movie. Fortunately the tinting has been preserved, tinting being one of the standard techniques of silent cinema and one that is very skillfully utilised in this film.

The score is provided by an outfit calling themselves KTL. I endured five minutes of it before turning the volume down to zero. Like most of the modern scores provided for DVD releases of silent movies it distracts the viewer rather than enhancing the movie.

The Phantom Carriage’s visual brilliance makes it one of the crucial movies in the evolution of the gothic horror movie, and although Sjöström was not really intending to make a horror movie as such it does work as a horror movie. Recommended, but if you’re not familiar with the techniques and conventions of silent movies you might be safer to rent this one first.

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.

The Man from Beyond (1922)

Everyone knows about Harry Houdini the magician. The most famous escape artist in history, Houdini was a legend in his own lifetime and remains one of the most recognised names in history. But there was more to Houdini that just magic. He was also a pioneer aviator, being the first man to fly in Australia. And he was a movie producer and movie star. His best-known movie is The Man from Beyond.

Two survivors of an Arctic exploration mission find an old sailing ship trapped in the ice. The ship has been there for a century. That’s extraordinary enough, but they also find one of the crew members frozen in the ice. When they thaw him out they discover that he is alive!

The man, Howard Hillary (Harry Houdini), had been the first mate of the ship on its last voyage in 1820. One of the men who found him is scientist Dr Gregory Sinclair. Sinclair decides not to tell Hillary the truth right away, as he fears that the shock of finding himself effectively transported in time for a century might be too much for him.

Hillary keeps asking what has happened to Felice. She was the woman he was in love with. She was a fellow passenger on that last fateful cruise in 1820.

Sinclair takes Hillary to the home of Dr Crawford Strange. When they arrive a wedding is about to take place between Dt Strange’s daughter Felice and a certain Dr Trent. Hillary is convinced that Felice is his own Felice, not realising that his Felice has been dead for a century. Hillary disrupts the wedding, which turns out not to be a bad thing. Felice Strange had been pressured into agreeing to a marriage she did not want.

Hillary has now made an enemy of Dr Trent. Dr Trent is the villain of the piece, the man responsible for the mysterious disappearance of Felice’s father, Dr Crawford Strange.

Dr Trent manages to get Hillary committed to an insane asylum but Hillary escapes (the movie thereby making use of Houdini’s skill as an escapologist). Hillary becomes more and more convinced that somehow Felice Strange really is his long-lost love Felice Norcross. Could it be that Felice Norcross has been reincarnated as Felice Strange?

The plot is pure melodrama but it’s fun. Houdini wrote the original story himself, as well as producing the movie and starring in it. The one major criticism that can be made against this movie is that it doesn’t really do enough with its central idea of a man who finds himself living a century ahead of his own time.

As an actor Houdini was rather limited but he’s capable enough for this sort of melodrama and he does have a certain presence.

Burton L. King was a prolific director in the silent era with a career going back as far as 1913. Modern audiences may find this movie to be a little stilted and perhaps too melodramatic but if you can accept it as melodrama

Imagine the worst DVD transfer you’ve ever seen and then multiply its flaws four-fold and you’ll have some idea of the sheer awfulness of Alpha Video’s presentation. Even by the very low standards of this company this disc is a shocker.

Houdini as the star makes The Man from Beyond an interesting historical curiosity, but fortunately it’s fairly entertaining as well. Worth a look.

Juve contre Fantômas (1913)

Juve Against Fantômas (Juve contre Fantômas) is the second installment of Louis Feuillade's 1913 Fantômas serial, which had an immense influence on the crime, adventure and horror movie genres. And despite being almost a century old it’s still great fun.

This second installment is itself divided into four parts with a total running time of around an hour. The diabolical criminal mastermind Fantômas is up to more wickedness, and is once again being pursued by his arch-nemesis, Inspector Juve of the Sûreté. Plot coherence has been more or less thrown out the window this time around, but it doesn’t really matter. As long as there are dastardly deeds afoot and we know that Fantômas is behind them and as long as the action keeps coming we don’t need to worry about details. After all, Fantômas is a master of disguise so who can tell exactly which crimes he might be responsible for?

There are links to the first installment, with Lady Beltham (the mistress of Fantômas) making another appearance. The master criminal is using her villa as his secret hide-out. And Juve is once again assisted by the energetic journalist Jérôme Fandor. Fantômas is also plotting to eliminate the witnesses to his earlier crimes, by destroying an entire train carriage by uncoupling it and leaving it in the path of a speeding express train.

It would be another decade or so before film-makers learnt the art of using a moving camera but Feuillade is clearly already aware of the limitations of the static camera. And he has found a number of ways to overcome this limitation. He uses depth of field, with action taking place in the background as well as the foreground, to maintain visual interest. And he makes sure there is always movement within the frame. These techniques are enough to give his movie a sense of dynamism so that you really don’t notice the stationary camera. The camera may be static, but his compositions never are. The use of different coloured tints also helps.

He also makes considerable (and effective) use of location shooting. Apart from adding a sense of excitement to the film this also gives us some wonderful glimpses of Paris street life before the Great War. In several scenes you can see passers-by suddenly noticing the film crew!

And although this is 1913 there are special effects, with some quite impressive model shots.

The acting is fairly naturalistic, which works well since the subject matter is so melodramatic that you don’t want the actors getting too histrionic. The costumes are great and you have to keep reminding yourself that these weren’t really costumes as such, it really was 1913 and the actors were simply wearing contemporary dress!

There are some very fine visual set-pieces - the train hijacking and especially the shoot-out on the beach among the wine barrels still seem imaginative after all these years. And there’s even an attempted murder by python. Fantômas makes a series of dramatic escapes, but Inspector Juve sticks to his trail with dogged determination.

It’s wonderful that these serials survive at all, but what’s even more pleasing is that they’re complete and in exceptionally good condition, and they look absolutely splendid.

Fantômas has influenced countless cinematic bad guys (and heroes as well) in the century that has passed since his first appearance on celluloid. He’s still a compelling villain, and Feuillade's serials remain fascinating and highly entertaining.

Dr Mabuse the Gambler (1922)

Fritz Lang’s 1922 film Dr Mabuse the Gambler is in many ways the daddy of all movies in the gangster, crime and film noir genres. Interestingly enough, Lang also invented the science fiction film (Metropolis) and the spy film (his 1928 film Spies). Every criminal mastermind or mad scientist or evil hypnotist from that time on also owed something to Dr Mabuse, although it could be argued that the type originated in earlier German movies like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Dr Mabuse the Gambler is a very long film (you could consider its two parts to be two moderately long films but they don’t stand alone so really it’s one film) but it can’t be accused of being boring. There’s just so much going on, so many wonderful visual touches, some terrific 1920s special effects (especially the use of text on screen, in the scene involving the state prosecutor’s car). And there’s so much outrageousness. It’s a movie that manages to be very pulpy and very arty at the same time. It has a lot to say about the disastrous conditions in Germany in the early 20s, the hyper-inflation, the appalling poverty combined with nouveau riche war-profiteers and black marketeers, and of course Berlin’s famous decadence.

At the same time it’s a great deal of fun, with Dr Mabuse the master of disguise matching wits against the determined and courageous State Prosecutor von Wenk. And there’s psychoanalysis, hypnotism and mind control. What more could you want? Dr Mabuse himself has often been seen as a kind of prophecy of the coming to power of Hitler, a suggestion vehemently denied by director Fritz Lang in the documentary that accompanies the Kino DVD (although he admits that his 1933 movie The Testament of Dr Mabuse does address the issue of the Nazis). The documentary is quite interesting, with plenty of information about Norbert Jacques, who wrote the Dr Mabuse books which were apparently immensely popular in Germany.

The score is as atrocious as every other modern silent film score I’ve come across – it was clearly composed by someone who’d never seen the movie and had no ideas what it was about. But if you let awful scores put you off you’d never get to see any silent movies. Don’t forget folks, they’re silent movies, so don’t be afraid to turn the volume down to zero and just enjoy the movie. The good news is that the Kino DVD looks terrific. And it’s a fantastic, bizarre, unique and very entertaining movie.

The Hands of Orlac (Orlacs Hände, 1924)

Maurice Renard’s novel The Hands of Orlac has been filmed several times, with the best-known version being possibly the extremely good 1935 MGM version under the title Mad Love, and starring Peter Lorre. The original screen adaptation was however the 1924 Germans film by Robert Wiene, the celebrated director of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

A great concert pianist, Paul Orlac, is injured in a train crash. His hands are damaged beyond repair. A brilliant surgeon performs a risky experimental surgical operation on him - transplanting onto him the hands of an executed murderer. Orlac soon becomes convinced that the hands have some sort of life of their own, and that they will lead him inexorably to evil. And in fact Orlac finds himself the prime suspect in a murder investigation, with the evidence against him seemingly incontrovertible. While the plot is quite similar to the later Mad Love, there are some crucial differences. Since they involve spoilers I’m not going to tell you what those differences are!

This film doesn’t have the extreme Expressionistic style and deliberately artificial painted sets of Caligari. It still manages a very Expressionist feel, achieved mainly by the lighting, and by the acting. Conrad Veidt’s performance as Orlac is very extreme. The movie has some of the same nightmare feel that Caligari has, and Veidt in particular is like a man trapped in a nightmare from which he cannot awake.

If you’re not familiar with the silent cinema of horror and the fantastic The Hands of Orlac is probably not the best place to start. The exaggerated and stylised acting style takes some getting used to.

But if, like me, you’re a fan of classic German Expressionist movies then this one is a must-see.

It’s included in the Kino German Expressionism DVD boxed set. For the age of the movie the picture quality is quite acceptable.

Häxan, (1922)

The Danish film Häxan, made by Benjamin Christensen in 1922, is perhaps the first ever example of the mingling of fiction and documentary. Essentially it’s a documentary on the history of witchcraft, but with fictionalised dramatisations of various events - what today would be described as reconstructions. Christensen clearly believes that the witch craze was the product of mass hysteria and religious fanaticism, and interestingly he sees parallels in the world of 1922, with psychiatrists (a priesthood that is still with us, armed today not with the infamous Malleus Maleficarum but with its modern equivalent, the DSM-IV) labelling problematical women as “hysterics” and locking them away where they can’t upset respectable folk. He also makes the point that many old women were accused of witchcraft, and that while such women no longer need to fear the stake our treatment of them is nothing to be proud of them. Like “hysterics” we want them to be out of sight where they won’t disturb us. The movie was controversial in its own day, being extremely critical of the Catholic Church and of Christian intolerance in general. It still packs quite a punch, and the scenes of poor deluded women who have convinced themselves they are possessed by Satan and deserve to be destroyed are still emotionally raw. In these days of paranoia and religious fundamentalism it’s perhaps even more relevant that it was in 1922. Visually it’s rather similar to the style of German Expressionism, and it makes effective use of tinting. Considering that there had been nothing like this movie before Christensen was very much experimenting with the form, and it works remarkably well. A fascinating film, and a great example of the extraordinary but sadly largely forgotten treasure that is silent cinema.

Waxworks (1924)

Paul Leni’s 1924 film Waxworksis one of the less known masterpieces of German Expressionist film. It’s not really a horror movie in a conventional sense. The framing story as a writer employed to come up with some stories about the figures in a wax museum. The first story involves the Caliph Harun al Raschid and is an Arabian Nights style fantasy, with some truly and wonderfully bizarre settings. It’s a lot of fun. The second story, concerning Ivan the Terrible, is much darker and looks just as fantastic as the first one. The third story, about Jack the Ripper, is really just an odd little epilogue and is has even less in common with conventional cinematic story-telling than the rest of the film. The movie is tinted, and the tinting look magnificent – it’s the most effective use of this technique I’ve seen. The movie present a series of visual images that are not merely stunning, they’re truly stupendous. It’s a movie that’s very much worth seeing, especially if you have a taste for movies that are out of the ordinary.

8 out of 10