The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film that is widely regarded as a pioneering work of expressionist cinema. Directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, the movie is notable for its innovative visual style, intricate plot, and the enduring influence it has had on the development of the horror genre. This article will delve into the history of the film, its unique visual aesthetic, and its lasting impact on the world of cinema.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari I. The Making of a Masterpiece
The film’s origins can be traced back to the experiences of its writers, Janowitz and Mayer, who were both deeply affected by the horrors of World War I. Inspired by their shared distrust of authority and their fascination with the subconscious mind, they crafted a story that aimed to depict the dark side of human nature...
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari I. The Making of a Masterpiece
The film’s origins can be traced back to the experiences of its writers, Janowitz and Mayer, who were both deeply affected by the horrors of World War I. Inspired by their shared distrust of authority and their fascination with the subconscious mind, they crafted a story that aimed to depict the dark side of human nature...
- 5/1/2023
- by Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
Another classic-era Eurohorror title has surfaced on Blu-ray. Straight from the exploitation trenches of postwar Germany, this elusive opus jangles plenty of nerves with its tale of mad surgery and crazy transplants. Partly a girlie show — most every scene involves some form of disrobing — it’s nevertheless an intriguing horror cocktail with top production values. The capable cast is really into the melodramatic shocks — it may not be Georges Franju but it’s several cuts above other ‘severed head’ epics — an insane carnival of flesh confusion that’s technically tame but truly adults-only by 1959 standards.
Die Nackte und Der Satan (The Head)
Blu-ray
Anolis Entertainment
1959 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen; 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / Standard Edition Street Date September 9, 2022 / Available from Diabolik DVD / 26.99
Starring: Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Michel Simon, Christiane Maybach, Dieter Eppler, Helmut Schmid, Barbara Valentin, Kurt Müller-Graf, Paul Dahlke, Maria Stadler.
Cinematography: Georg Krause
Production Designers: Bruno Monden,...
Die Nackte und Der Satan (The Head)
Blu-ray
Anolis Entertainment
1959 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen; 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / Standard Edition Street Date September 9, 2022 / Available from Diabolik DVD / 26.99
Starring: Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Michel Simon, Christiane Maybach, Dieter Eppler, Helmut Schmid, Barbara Valentin, Kurt Müller-Graf, Paul Dahlke, Maria Stadler.
Cinematography: Georg Krause
Production Designers: Bruno Monden,...
- 10/25/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Head
DVD – Region 2 Only – No English Audio or Subtitles
Delta Music & Entert. GmbH & Co. Kg
1959 / 1.33:1 / 97 min.
Starring Michel Simon, Horst Frank, Karin Kernke
Cinematography by Georg Krause
Directed by Victor Trivas
A scientist who operates out of a starkly Modernist laboratory of glass and steel, Dr. Ood comes from a long line of German crackpots with a flair for the theatrical. Rotwang, the bug-eyed inventor of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, springs to mind along with Dr. Gogol, the lovelorn psychopath of Karl Freund’s Mad Love. And not to forget the omniscient Dr. Mabuse. Each man had style to burn and was obsessed with possessing desirable – and controllable – women.
The protagonist of Victor Trivas’s The Head, Ood was the most hands-on of the bunch, satisfying his lust by transplanting the head of a beautiful but misshapen doctor’s assistant to the body of a burlesque queen. Trivas...
DVD – Region 2 Only – No English Audio or Subtitles
Delta Music & Entert. GmbH & Co. Kg
1959 / 1.33:1 / 97 min.
Starring Michel Simon, Horst Frank, Karin Kernke
Cinematography by Georg Krause
Directed by Victor Trivas
A scientist who operates out of a starkly Modernist laboratory of glass and steel, Dr. Ood comes from a long line of German crackpots with a flair for the theatrical. Rotwang, the bug-eyed inventor of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, springs to mind along with Dr. Gogol, the lovelorn psychopath of Karl Freund’s Mad Love. And not to forget the omniscient Dr. Mabuse. Each man had style to burn and was obsessed with possessing desirable – and controllable – women.
The protagonist of Victor Trivas’s The Head, Ood was the most hands-on of the bunch, satisfying his lust by transplanting the head of a beautiful but misshapen doctor’s assistant to the body of a burlesque queen. Trivas...
- 4/18/2020
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
The staggering lack of gender parity in this year’s Venice Film Festival competition slate — a grand total of 21 films, only one of which was directed by a woman — has produced a pledge, on the part of the festival, to correct that situation in the future. That’s a good start, yet it’s worth pondering why the numbers were so egregiously off in the first place. The most obvious question to ask is: Could every film that wound up in the competition really have been “better” than every last film, directed by a woman, that was submitted and rejected? Like many observers, I overwhelmingly suspect that the answer is no.
Yet there’s another issue that’s every bit as urgent. In a festival line-up, it’s not just a matter of what’s “better” — it’s a matter of what’s better because it’s different. Quality is a subjective thing,...
Yet there’s another issue that’s every bit as urgent. In a festival line-up, it’s not just a matter of what’s “better” — it’s a matter of what’s better because it’s different. Quality is a subjective thing,...
- 9/2/2018
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Of all the legendary early horror films Carl Theodor Dreyer’s vampire nightmare was once the most difficult to appreciate — until Criterion’s restoration of a mostly intact, un-mutilated full cut. Dreyer creates his fantasy according to his own rules — this pallid, claustrophobic horror is closer to Ordet than it is Dracula or Nosferatu.
Vampyr
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 437
1932 / Color / 1:19 Movietone Ap. / 73 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 3, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Julian West (Baron Nicolas De Gunzberg), Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, Henriette Gérard.
Cinematography: Rudolph Maté
Art Direction: Hermann Warm
Film Editor: Tonka Taldy
Original Music: Wolfgang Zeller
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Christen Jul from In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu
Produced by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Julian West
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr is a tough row to hoe for horror fans, many of whom just...
Vampyr
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 437
1932 / Color / 1:19 Movietone Ap. / 73 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 3, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Julian West (Baron Nicolas De Gunzberg), Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, Henriette Gérard.
Cinematography: Rudolph Maté
Art Direction: Hermann Warm
Film Editor: Tonka Taldy
Original Music: Wolfgang Zeller
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Christen Jul from In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu
Produced by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Julian West
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr is a tough row to hoe for horror fans, many of whom just...
- 9/19/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Dreyer on the set. Courtesy of Dfi.Located in Glostrup, a quiet suburb of Copenhagen, the Danish Film Institute’s Archive is where a great portion of Danish film history, but also some unique prints of world cinema heritage, have entered a pleasant dormancy of minus 5°C. The mundane looking front building is at the back attached to vaults, sheltering thousands of films and film objects. Inside, there is nothing as ear-pleasing as the silence of a film archive, where the continuous and vague hum of ventilators is the closest thing to the murmur of celluloid.Mikael Braae, film historian and curator of the feature films at the Dfi, generously took me on an tour of the Archive which, after passing through freezing vaults, arrived at a huge storage room where on a temporary platform my attention is brought to a wrapped object: the editing table of the spiritual father of Danish cinema,...
- 11/8/2016
- MUBI
When Fritz Lang began in film he was a better writer than director. This lavish two-part thriller sees him concocting a multi-genre mashup, shoehorning cowboy action thrills and an exotic lost Incan civilization into dagger-and-poison serial skullduggery. The Spiders Blu-ray Kino Classics 1919 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 173 min. / Street Date August 23, 2016 / Die Spinnen / available through Kino Classics / 29.95 Starring Carl de Vogt, Ressel Orla, Lil Dagover, Georg John. Cinematography Karl Freund Designers Otto Hunte, Carl Ludwig Kirmse, Heinrich Umlauff, Hermann Warm Music (2012) Ben Model Produced by Erich Pommer Written and Directed by Fritz Lang There appears to be nothing new under the sun, even if lovers of Indiana Jones don't realize that most everything he did, had been done long before in silent serials. I have a lazy habit here of claiming that Fritz Lang invented most of the basic ideas we see in every adventure genre except the western. But these...
- 8/13/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Special Mention: Un chien andalou
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel
France, 1929
Genre: Experimental Short
The dream – or nightmare – has been a staple of horror cinema for decades. In 1929, Luis Bunuel joined forces with Salvador Dali to create Un chien andalou, an experimental and unforgettable 17-minute surrealist masterpiece. Buñuel famously said that he and Dalí wrote the film by telling one another their dreams. The film went on to influence the horror genre immensely. After all, even as manipulative as the “dream” device is, it’s still a proven way to jolt an audience. Just ask Wes Craven, who understood this bit of cinematic psychology when he dreamt of the central force behind A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film intended to be an exploration of surreal horror. David Lynch is contemporary cinema’s most devoted student of Un chien andalou – the severed ear at...
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel
France, 1929
Genre: Experimental Short
The dream – or nightmare – has been a staple of horror cinema for decades. In 1929, Luis Bunuel joined forces with Salvador Dali to create Un chien andalou, an experimental and unforgettable 17-minute surrealist masterpiece. Buñuel famously said that he and Dalí wrote the film by telling one another their dreams. The film went on to influence the horror genre immensely. After all, even as manipulative as the “dream” device is, it’s still a proven way to jolt an audience. Just ask Wes Craven, who understood this bit of cinematic psychology when he dreamt of the central force behind A Nightmare on Elm Street, a film intended to be an exploration of surreal horror. David Lynch is contemporary cinema’s most devoted student of Un chien andalou – the severed ear at...
- 10/28/2015
- by Ricky Fernandes
- SoundOnSight
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Directed by Robert Wiene
Written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz
Germany, 1920
In the period of Germany’s Weimar Republic, a unique and volatile pre- and post-war era within a window of less than 20 years, the German people were experiencing a torrent of new ideological, social, and political shifts. What was once traditional and normal was giving way to the modern and unusual. What was typically viewed as quintessentially German was now being inundated by outside influences, by strange and foreign people and their imported cultural baggage. Whether or not these elements were as directly and obviously portrayed in movies as some like Siegfreid Kracauer and Lotte Eisner would argue (quite convincingly in many ways), there can be little doubt that film was influenced to one degree or another by this state of the German populous. The times were surely changing, and in no film...
Directed by Robert Wiene
Written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz
Germany, 1920
In the period of Germany’s Weimar Republic, a unique and volatile pre- and post-war era within a window of less than 20 years, the German people were experiencing a torrent of new ideological, social, and political shifts. What was once traditional and normal was giving way to the modern and unusual. What was typically viewed as quintessentially German was now being inundated by outside influences, by strange and foreign people and their imported cultural baggage. Whether or not these elements were as directly and obviously portrayed in movies as some like Siegfreid Kracauer and Lotte Eisner would argue (quite convincingly in many ways), there can be little doubt that film was influenced to one degree or another by this state of the German populous. The times were surely changing, and in no film...
- 11/22/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Think silent films reached a high point with The Artist? The pre-sound era produced some of the most beautiful, arresting films ever made. From City Lights to Metropolis, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. City Lights
City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.
At its heart,...
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. City Lights
City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.
At its heart,...
- 11/22/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Sandman Meditations – Worlds’ End: Sequences at the Inn & A Tale of Two Cities
Worlds’ End begins with a prelude illustrated by Bryan Talbot and Mark Buckingham in which two people get in a car crash during a mysterious June snowstorm and find their way to a magical inn, the Worlds’ End.
That plural apostrophe is easy to overlook, but the plurality of worlds at the inn is immediately apparent to the viewer from the first panel on page seven, which offers our initial sight of the other characters who are waiting out the storm, or storms — characters of such physiognomic variety that they might be ready to attend Mardi Gras or a particularly good Halloween party. We’re experienced enough by now with The Sandman, though, to suspect these aren’t costumes.
Brant is still in shock from the crash and from carrying the unconscious Charlene to the inn, and...
Worlds’ End begins with a prelude illustrated by Bryan Talbot and Mark Buckingham in which two people get in a car crash during a mysterious June snowstorm and find their way to a magical inn, the Worlds’ End.
That plural apostrophe is easy to overlook, but the plurality of worlds at the inn is immediately apparent to the viewer from the first panel on page seven, which offers our initial sight of the other characters who are waiting out the storm, or storms — characters of such physiognomic variety that they might be ready to attend Mardi Gras or a particularly good Halloween party. We’re experienced enough by now with The Sandman, though, to suspect these aren’t costumes.
Brant is still in shock from the crash and from carrying the unconscious Charlene to the inn, and...
- 9/13/2011
- by Matthew Cheney
- Boomtron
Conrad Veidt is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" performer of the day. An international star since the 1920s, Veidt worked in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Hollywood — twice. [Conrad Veidt Movie Schedule.] In the late '20s, Veidt was the star of unusual Hollywood fare such as Paul Leni's The Man Who Laughs (1928), in the title role as a man with a grin-like scar where his mouth should be, and Paul Fejos' The Last Performance (1929), as a magician in love with pretty Mary Philbin — a Universal star who also happened to be Veidt's leading lady in The Man Who Laughs. With the arrival of talking pictures, Veidt returned to Germany, but with the ascent of the Nazis he fled first to England and later to the United States. In the Hollywood of the early '40s, Veidt became everybody's favorite Nazi in movies such as Nazi Agent, Escape, and Casablanca.
- 8/24/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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