EERIE TALES (1919)
Attempted to watch this the other night but as it turns out, having a category 2 hurricane pummeling your house is kind of distracting, so I didn't get to finish and barely paid attention to what I did see. So this isn't a review, just some thoughts.
I've got a soft spot for horror anthologies, for better or worse, and this is the earliest I've heard of. (only learned about it in the past week) There's a framing device in which three portraits that adorn the walls of an old book shop come to life after hours and read some of the books in the shop. These characters are The Devil, Death, and...The Flirt (?). There's 5 stories including one from RL Stevenson and
The Black Cat by EA Poe. (This makes my NINTH version of
The Black Cat that I've watched this month.) This is the only segment that registered with me, just because my familiarity with the story made it easier to follow given my less-than-rapt attention. Kind of wimped out on the ending- we see the cat emerge from the wall but never see the wife inside- but it adds a marital-infidelity angle that would also be used in Corman's/Matheson's
Tales of Terror. Makes me wonder if this was the inspiration for that.
But what I really want to talk about is Conrad Veidt and why he should be mentioned more often in the Horror Icon conversation. His roles as Cesare and Gwynplaine should be reason enough for inclusion, but even in less famous roles he can be one creepy SOB. (See photo above). In 1920 FW Murnau made an unauthorized version of Jekyll & Hyde (
Der Januskopf) starring Veidt in the title role and BELA EFFING LUGOSI in a supporting role. That film is lost, much to my eternal chagrin. I wonder if, had the "monster kids" of the 50s and 60s had access to that film, Veidt would be more prominent among horror fans and would be mentioned more often alongside Chaney, Karloff, etc.