16. Häxan - 1922

Director: Benjamin Christensen

Synopsis: Pseudo-documentary about witchcraft through the ages.

Review: This starts out with a synopsis of what people in the middle ages thought of the devil and witchcraft. There's a lot of "Here is a picture. Note the following things about the picture." It's pretty boring honestly.

The rest of the movie is a fictional story about a witch. Essentially it follows a few witches from them making potions to their trial. It takes a somewhat sympathetic view on how women were baselessly tortured after being accused of witchcraft. This is where the movie takes off because it's where the shock value kicks in (the still above is a woman literally giving birth to a demon spawned by Satan).

I think this movie really had a lot of great staging and special effects (the coins flying away in reverse was probably impressive at the time). I think it took an interesting look at mental illness even if it was not entirely correct. It also tried to put us in the shoes of what it might feel like to be accused of witchcraft. All that stuff is nice, but I really loved the shock value and portrayals of the devil. So, here are my top five listed from least favorite to favorite:

05. The devil making out with a witch
04. Literally beating a nun over the head with a club03. A line of women literally kissing his butt

02. Satan playing some sort of bagpipe/saxophone hybrid.

01. The devil churning butter.

Score: 7/10

15. Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie Des Grauens (Nosferatu, A Symphony Of Terror) - 1922

Director: F. W. Murnau

Synopsis: It's just Dracula with different names.

Review: I mentioned in the Caligari review that ditching realism completely can be awesome. Sometimes it's better to have just one thing slightly off. That one element seems stranger by comparison. That is what Max Schreck/Count Orlock, pictured above, is in this movie.

He's just so freaky looking that every shot with him is automatically scarier for having him in it. I think many of the shots with him are compositionally better, but placing him in front of a blank wall would be creepy. Here is his famous shadow:

I saw this movie when I was little and that specific image is stuck forever in my mind. I know it's been reused and referenced to stick it in anyone's mind, but I still remember seeing this the first time when I was about seven. Everything I remember about this movie is purely visual and therein lies the problem.

Orlock is on screen for nine minutes out of 94. He completely overshadowed everything else in the movie; I believe this is typically referred to as Anthony Hopkins in Silence Of The Lambs syndrome. After seeing this movie, could one even describe what any of the other characters or non-Orlock settings look like? Max Schreck plays two characters, the creepy guy in the Knock's real estate office, and even that is forgettable. It's not entirely Schreck's creepiness that overpowers the rest of the film though.

How many vampire movies are there? How many of them follow this pattern?

1. Man goes to Transylvania
2. Man mentions visiting Count Dracula/Count Orlock
3. Townsfolk look at Man with distrust
4. Man makes it to Dracula's castle
5. It's mostly deserted and Dracula shows up out of nowhere looking creepy
6. On and on and on and on and on and on

The basic Dracula plot does nothing for me anymore. I've seen it too many times to be affected. Once you see Orlock, the rest of the movie is waiting for Orlock to show up again. Murnau was smart enough to space out the shots with Orlock and make each one slightly more interesting than the last. The second half is just kind of boring because it's just standard vampire movie.

I sound like this movie sucks, but it really doesn't. For the visuals alone it's awesome. There are even some decent shots of things moving by themselves thanks to the power of editing, but they have kind of lost their affect over time as well.

Also of special note in this movie, this guy's beard:

Watch this right now here.

Some non-vampire pictures of Max Schreck can be found online here. I include the link only for research purposes. Outside of Germany, the works and likeness of Max Schreck are unavailable unless one has a copy of the out of print VHS Die Straße. People can also decide for themselves whether Murnau, who correctly felt nothing more than pointed ears were required to make Schreck vampiric, was correct in describing Schreck as "strikingly ugly."

Score: 8/10

14. Nanook Of The North - 1922

Director: Robert S. Flaherty

Synopsis: "Documentary" of an Itivimuit named "Nanook."

Review: Once a documentary's validity is in question, you have to question all of it (take note Michael Moore). Flaherty had lived with Inuits for years and filmed them. The film was unintersting according to Flaherty, but it was destroyed anyway. When making Nanook Of The North, he decided to make a better movie. How so?

The scenes are staged. The traditional clothing was no longer used. They had rifles. That isn't Nanook's wife. Nanook's real name is Allakariallak. Many of the things Nanook demonstrated had passed out of use. Some of the things Nanook demonstrated had to be taught to him by Flaherty. And so on. So, I don't consider this a documentary proper.

That's not to say Nanook couldn't have done this stuff. He clearly knew how to build an igloo. The walrus hunt seemed pretty realistic. The seal hunt is obviously staged (crew members pulled the rope themselves since the seal was all ready dead). Flaherty was attempting to recreate a mostly dead lifestyle before no one with any experience could. So, I think that there is some merit to this "documentary."

The other merit is that it's highly enjoyable. Nanook himself is so natural in his role that you'll forget that this is staged and simply enjoy it. Whether he's killing an all ready dead seal or biting a record, he comes across as completely believable.

Documentary or not, this is flat out a fun watch. Since it's public domain and available online (transfer stolen from Criterion), watch it here.

Score: 7/10

13. Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse, Parts 1 and 2) - 1922

Director: Fritz Lang

Synopsis: Dr. Mabuse is a criminal mastermind, psychoanalyst, master of disguise and gambler. He uses all of these to cheat at cards in the local underground gambling clubs. American millionaire Hull teams up with inspector von Wenk to take down Mabuse after being cheated out of 200,000 marks. After arresting Mabuse's aquaintance Carozza, they unsuccessfully try to get information out of her. Hull gets killed in an attempt to kill von Wenk at some point. Von Wenk assumes using a woman, Countess Told, will get Carozza to talk. The countess refuses because Carozza and Mabuse are in love except Mabuse convinces Carozza to kill herself instead of condemn him.

Mabuse uses, through hypnotism, Countess Told's husband to cheat at cards. Count Told, since he doesn't gamble, goes to Mabuse for help. Mabuse, because he is now in love with Countess Told, convinces Count Told to hide himself from everyone. Countess Told demands to see her husband which causes Mabuse to force Count told to go crazy...to death.

Von Wenk has been bothering Mabuse's crime family this whole time even though von Wenk doesn't know Mabuse is the criminal because of his disguises. Mabuse host a hypnotism show in another disguise and convinces von Wenk to go. The plan is that he will convince, through hypnotism, von Wenk to kill himself by way of an "accident." It doesn't work and von Wenk has figured out Mabuse is behind all of the crimes.


The police and military surround Mabuse's place. Instead of going quietly, Mabuse chooses to fight. The rest of his does the fighting while Mabuse escapes to his counterfeiting hideout. At this point, the ghosts of his victims haunt him and he goes crazy.


Review: I've seen various running times listed for this. The version I saw was four and one half hours.

I watched this a while ago. I guess I forgot to write anything about it other than the synopsis. I didn't realize until I found this was only a draft. Take my word for it that it is worth watching. Do not be intimidated by the lengthy run time. The movie could have been shorter but I appreciated the throw in everything but the kitchen sink approach because it all worked.

Score: 9/10

12. La Sourtiante Madame Beudet (The Smiling Madame Beudet) - 1922

Did somebody say "Place holder for another movie I can't find?" I certainly hope so.

Who got dis movie? Gimmie dis movie. I want dis movie.

11. Orphans Of The Storm - 1921

Director: D. W. Griffith

Synopsis: A girl (Louise) is abandoned by her mother, but found by another guy attempting to abandon his daughter (Henriette) at the same church. The guy adopts the other girl and raises the two as sisters. Their parents die and they go to Paris to find a cure for Louise's blindness. Henriette gets kidnapped by the marquis or something. Louise gets taken in by some beggers. A bunch of crap happens including the sisters almost reuniting and the first Bastille Day (oh yeah, movie takes place during the French Revolution). Henriette is taken to court, where she reunites with Lousie, for housing aristocracy. She is sentenced to death but is saved at the last minute. The sisters are reunited. Louise meets her mother. Henriette is in love with Count de Vaurney.

Review: No more Griffith! Yay! I couldn't even watch this in one sitting because I was so freaking bored. I'm not sure how much of that is because I'm sick of really long melodramas, Griffith or because the movie is genuinely boring. Though the movie had some good parts, it was a struggle to get through regardless of what the problem was.

I think there has been a huge amount of refinement with Griffith. Each film has made some form of technical progress, but the last few have been about refining his work. In a sense, this may be his best movie on the list and I might enjoyed it more if I hadn't been sick of him by now. Maybe I will watch this again someday and reevaluate it (this will not happen).

I really enjoyed a few sections of this movie though. Griffith knows how to make things tense which he does really well in the end. He also understood that great sets and huge crowds can put you wherever the director wants you to be.

As an aside, I saw Ben Hur when I was about nine and my mother commented that when the Bible said there were thousands of people to witness something, Ben Hur had the thousands on screen which really impressed me as a kid. Being aware of Griffith, and some other movies that predate Ben Hur, makes me realize that wasn't nearly so impressive.

Overall, this is an okay film but not essential in my opinion unless you want to see the first instance of nudity of film to my knowledge.

Score: 7/10

10. Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage) - 1921

This is yet another place holder. So many of these movies have never been available in the United States outside of theaters, but the critics recommending them for this book have apparently seen them.

The only copy I could find outside of importing a region 2 DVD was through a now-defunct torrent site (again, public domain and never available in region 1; get off my back). There were unfortunately no subtitles for the Swedish intertitles. I was hoping I could piece it together if the movie wasn't too heavy on intertitles; this proved impossible.

I was going to try using an online translator. This took too long and the reputation of online translators as being pretty terrible is 100% accurate. Unless I can find a translation somewhere, I will not be watching this any time soon.