![]() However as an outspoken anti-Nazi, things soon got too hot for him there, and he and his Jewish wife fled to the U.K. ![]() Like so many others, he came to Hollywood in the 1920s but returned to the relative artistic freedom of the German film industry. ![]() In Waxworks, his Ivan the Terrible, in this film, is truly terrible: evil, regal, perverse, and mad and the scariest thing in this film. Super-lean with large eyes, Veidt managed to appear sinister, vulnerable, dangerous and elegant, all at once or changing at the drop of a hat. Calagari (Wiene, 1919), The Janus Head (Murnau, 1920), Hands of Orlac (Wiene, 1924). Jannings then returned to Germany, possibly because his accent was too thick for “talkies.” Back home he was a favorite of Josef Goebbels who named him “Staatsschauspieler (state’s actor).” After the German defeat, because he’d starred in numerous Nazi propaganda films, he was not allowed to work as an actor again and had to undergo a de-Nazification program. Jannings came to Hollywood in the late 20s where he starred in The Way of All Flesh (Fleming, 1927) and The Last Command - winning the first Best Actor Oscar for those performances. … was the pre-eminent German actor of his day, known for: The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924), Varieté (Dupont, 1925), Faust (Murnau, 1926) and more. He was particularly great at playing decadent, satyr-like men lusting after young pretty girls, as he does here as the Sultan, with more comic-relief than was his usual. If not, please allow your friendly Film History Prof to elucidate…. If you recognize the names I just dropped, you’re wowed. And lastly there is Jack The Ripper ( Werner Krauss) - this tale is a bad dream and features layers of multiple exposures. Then a tale of Ivan the Terrible ( Conrad Veidt) interfering in a young couple’s wedding night. First is an Arabian Nights-esque story about a baker (Dieterle), his wife, and the corrupt and lusty Caliph ( Emil Jannings). ![]() The poet, seeing the man’s lovely daughter, agrees and writes himself and the daughter into the tales he spins. The owner of a wax museum hires a poet ( William Dieterle) to write stories to accompany his statues. Ernst Stern’s sketch for ‘Waxworks’ (Caliph story)Īs far as the film’s story goes, you might assume, as I did, that it’s an earlier version of House of Wax (1953), but no! This is actually a clever anthology – three tales within a framing device - not quite horror in the American sense. The sketch below shows a camera-set-lighting set up, which gives you an idea how they did things back in the bad-old Ufa days. John Gottowt, William Dieterle, and Olga Belajeff in Paul Leni’s ‘Waxworks’ (1924) The sets feature elaborate, undulating expressionist curves - as opposed to Caligari‘s sharp angles - giving it an overall more organic feel which, for my money, makes it that much the creepier. The chiaroscuro lighting employed throughout seems to chisel it’s glowing images out of pure blackness. The visual design is dazzling throughout which is no doubt due to the fact that Leni was himself an Art Director. It certainly is every bit as luxuriously dark and visually twisted as those other better-known films. Maybe because Leni died too young, in 1929 before solidifying his reputation in Hollywood. I have no idea why this film is not as often referenced or remembered as those others. Calagari (Wiene, 1919) and Metropolis (Lang, 1927), and maybe even a few scenes from Nosferatu (Murnau, 1929), but one of my favorite German Expressionst films never gets taught in Film History 1A: Paul Leni’s Waxworks (1924) which I just re-watched as part of my annual, personal, horror-thon. If you, like me, are an armchair fan of German Expressionism, you’ve probably seen The Cabinet of Dr.
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