90% (2) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 67 min, Not Rated, [Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller] [Robert Wiene] [19 Mar 1921]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 81%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 nomination.
Actors: Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Werner Krauss
Writer: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: None Country: Germany
Plot: Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. It is the annual fair in Holstenwall. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep. When Alan asks Cesare about his future, Cesare answers that he will die before dawn. The next morning Alan is found dead. Francis suspects Cesare of being the murderer, and starts spying on him and Dr. Caligari. The following night Cesare is going to stab Jane in her bed, but softens when he sees the beautiful woman, and instead of committing another murder, he abducts her. Jane's father awakens because of the noise, and he and some servants follow the fleeing Cesare. When Cesare cannot outrun his pursuers anymore, he gently places Jane down on the ground, and runs away. Francis and the police investigate the caravan of Dr. Caligari, but the doctor succeeds in slipping away. Francis pursues the fleeing Dr. Caligari, and sees him disappear into a madhouse. Francis enters the madhouse, where he is sure he will find the truth behind all these mysterious events.
Rotten Tomatoes: In one of the most influential films of the silent era, Werner Krauss plays the title character, a sinister hypnotist who travels the carnival circuit displaying a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt). In one tiny German town, a series of murders coincides with Caligari's visit. When the best friend of hero Francis (Friedrich Feher) is killed, the deed seems to be the outgrowth of a romantic rivalry over the hand of the lovely Jane (Lil Dagover). Francis suspects Caligari, but he is ignored by the police. Investigating on his own, Francis seemingly discovers that Caligari has been ordering the somnambulist to commit the murders, but the story eventually takes a more surprising direction. Caligari's Expressionist style ultimately led to the dark shadows and sharp angles of the film noir urban crime dramas of the 1940s, many of which were directed by such German émigrés as Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak.
Scroll To: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% [ / 5]
74% (2) The Joyless Street 125 min, [Drama] [Georg Wilhelm Pabst] [05 Jul 1927]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 74%, Rotten Tomatoes: 75%, External Reviews
Actors: Asta Nielsen, Greta Garbo, Werner Krauss, Ágnes Eszterházy
Writer: Hugo Bettauer (based on the novel by), F.H. Lyon (translator)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: German Country: Germany
Plot: Vienna in the biggest depression, directly after WW1. In a slum, Lila Leid, the wife of lawyer Leid is murdered, Egon, secretary of one of Leid's clients is arrested. He was with her, and had her necklace, because he needed some money for his own stock exchange deals. The same deal brings poverty to ex-government official Rumfort, his daughter Greta, who also has lost her job, tries to get some money to get food. She rents a room of the flat she, her young sister and her father are living in to an American Red Cross official, who pays $60 rent, but the money is taken by some of her father's creditors. But their neighbour, shop owner Mrs Greifer knows how to "help", she and Mrs. Merkel are running a nightclub with a brothel...
Rotten Tomatoes: This film is an unvarnished study of post-WWI Vienna. Plagued with skyrocketing inflation, the Austrian metropolis becomes the domain of every scurrilous form of profiteering. The central character is a crooked butcher whose negative influence dominates the lives of virtually everyone on a single Viennese street.
Scroll To: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% [ / 5]
69% (1) Nana 150 min, [Drama, Romance] [Jean Renoir] [25 Jun 1926]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, External Reviews
Actors: Catherine Hessling, Jacqueline Forzane, Pierre Lestringuez, Werner Krauss
Writer: Pierre Lestringuez (scenario), Émile Zola (inspired by the novel by), Denise Leblond (intertitles)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: French Country: France
Plot: Based on the famous novel by Emile Zola. The vivacious and beautiful Nana seeks fame on the stages of Paris in the shows at the Théâtre des Variétés. (which will look familiar to lovers of "Children of Paradise"). When she bombs as an actress, Nana becomes a courtesan, using her allure and charisma more directly to entice and pleasure men. She is kept in a sumptuous fashion by a wealthy count, and several prominent and wealthy men find themselves unable to withstand her charms. In the novel, the theater manager describe Nana: "Nana has something else, dammit, and something that takes the place of everything else. I scented it out, and it smells damnably strong in her, or else I lost my sense of smell." But there's a pain and a pathos at the heart of Nana's situation, and it slowly makes its poisonous way into the lives of all in Nana's orbit.
Rotten Tomatoes: Jean Renoir's second film was this lavishly appointed adaptation of Emile Zola's novel Nana. Renoir does an admirable job retelling Zola's woeful tale of a covetous Parisian slum girl in purely visual terms. Hoping to escape her tawdry surroundings, Nana has an affair with high-ranking government official George Muffat. Instead of elevating herself to Muffat's level, however, Nana drags the poor man down to hers -- and in the end, both lives have been utterly destroyed. Catherine Hessling gives a stylized but effective performance in the title role. Taken to task for the over-elaborate set designs (by Claude Autant-Lara), which resulted in France's most expensive film to date, Jean Renoir merely explained that he was endeavoring to contrast the splendiferous lifestyle of Muffat and his friends to the shabby origins of the heroine. On an artistic level he succeeded, but Nana ended up costing way too much to ever post a profit, and it would be several years before Renoir would be entrusted with a big-budgeted film again. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Scroll To: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% [ / 5]
69% (1) The Treasure 80 min, [Drama, Romance] [Georg Wilhelm Pabst] [23 Nov 1929]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 69%, External Reviews
Actors: Albert Steinrück, Ilka Grüning, Lucie Mannheim, Werner Krauss
Writer: Rudolph Hans Bartsch (novel), Willy Hennings, Georg Wilhelm Pabst
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: German Country: Germany
Plot: In and around a bell maker near Marburg (today Slovenia) people tell the story of a treasure that was hidden during the Turki invasion of 1683, the year the Turkish Army was besieging Vienna. Everybody think it's nonsense except for an old worker there, who feels that the treasure must be in the bell maker's house. A young traveling worker who has fallen in love with the bell maker's daughter Beate makes fun of this, but she convinces him that the old worker is not that nuts. So he starts searching for himself, and soon he finds it, as well as the old worker. He tells his master, who decides, that the young one has to disappear. He and Beate are leaving, while the old worker offers his part of the treasure to the master if he allows him to marry Beate. Beate, after coming home, hears of that and leaves together with the young worker.
Rotten Tomatoes: In and around a bell maker near Marburg (today Slovenia) people tell the story of a treasure that was hidden during the Turki invasion of 1683, the year the Turkish Army was besieging Vienna. Everybody think it's nonsense except for an old worker there, who feels that the treasure must be in the bell maker's house. A young traveling worker who has fallen in love with the bell maker's daughter Beate makes fun of this, but she convinces him that the old worker is not that nuts. So he starts searching for himself, and soon he finds it, as well as the old worker. He tells his master, who decides, that the young one has to disappear. He and Beate are leaving, while the old worker offers his part of the treasure to the master if he allows him to marry Beate. Beate, after coming home, hears of that and leaves together with the young worker.
Scroll To: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% [ / 5]
68% (1) Waxworks 65 min, [Fantasy, Horror] [Leo Birinsky, Paul Leni] [01 Feb 1929]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 nomination.
Actors: Conrad Veidt, Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss, William Dieterle
Writer: Henrik Galeen
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: German Country: Germany
Plot: The owner of a Waxmuseum needs for three of his models stories to be told to the audience. For that reason he has hired a writer, who after one look athe owner's pretty daughter, starts writing stories featuring the models, the daughter and himself. In the first, he is a baker, married to the girl, who is a little bit too much flirting with the customers, among them the wezir of sultan Harun Al-Rashid, who has just ordered his execution because the smell from the bakery is drifting to his palce, yet Harun Al-Rashid wants to meet the beautiful girl himself, while an angry baker is trying to get the Sultan's whishing ring to proof he's not a weakling... The second story is about Tzar Ivan the Terrible who likes watching people die together with his court-chemist. When he orders the execution of the chemist, the chemist thinks of a nice revanche, but till the revanche works, a nobleman is murdered, his daughter kidnapped by Ivan and her groom tortured. While writing the third story about Jack the Ripper, he falls asleep and dreams he and the girl are pursuit by that serial killer.
Scroll To: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% [ / 5]