WATCHMOVIES RATING

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The 1919



The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, properly presented, is a highly artistic and intriguing film. Werner Krauss gives a great performance as the deranged head of a mental institution. He has a fascination with somnambulists - people with a disorder in which they are constantly asleep. Conrad Veidt plays Cesare, a somnambulist who has recently been admitted to Caligari's asylum. Caligari tours with Cesare, exhibiting him in "freak shows" at local fairs. A series of strange murders begins to occur, bringing an aura of mystery to the story. This is a film widely recognized for its macabre set design. The sets are oddly shaped in a deco style, emphasizing every shadow as a significant part of the locale. To design sets such as these took sheer genius, making The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari the defining German Expressionist film. This film is also notable as the second screen appearance of actress Lil dagover. This film was the beginning of international fame for Dagover, and she maintained an active motion picture career through 1979 - just a year before her death. Werner Krauss, whose career began in 1914, was the leading interpretor of German expresionist cinema, having starred in propaganda films during the Nazi regime, and was designated as "actor of the state". Although Conrad Veidt had starred in notable films like Opium (1918) and Different From the Others (1919), it was his performance in this film that solidified his reputation as an actor. It was performances in this film and The Student of Prague (1926) that led to his being recruited by Hollywood's Universal Studios in 1927. He returned to Germany in 1929, but when the Nazis came to power, he fled to England with his Jewish wife, and became a British citizen in 1939. He starred in a number of American talkies from 1940 until his death in 1943 from a heart attack. The most notable of these later talkie performances was in Casablanca (1943). In 1995, David Shepard produced a new restoration of the film for Kino. This properly presented version revealed that the film has not been fairly evaluated, as all previously available prints were truncations of the film as it was meant to be seen. This new restoration contains a great deal of footage that was not present in the previously available prints, thus accounting partially for the incoherence of the print evaluated before. In addition, this new restoration featured the original art deco titles designed to match the decor of the particular part of the film being seen, as well as a proper translation. This proper translation is also a big part in making the film more coherent. Previous prints were in black and white, missing footage, poorly translated, and taken from negatives that were shot from inferior angles, thus cutting out a lot of important details in the picture itself.

producerMeinert, RudolfscreenwriterJanowitz, Hans
musicscoreGuiseppe, Becce duration71
colorNo soundNo
genrehorror countryGERMANY

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Director: Wiene, Robert

 Male Star: Krauss, Werner

 Female Star: Dagover, Lil
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