The Head of Janus
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| The Head of Janus | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | F.W. Murnau |
| Produced by | Erich Pommer |
| Written by | Novel: Robert Louis Stevenson Screenplay: Hans Janowitz |
| Cinematography | Karl Freund Carl Hoffmann Carl Weiss |
| Release date(s) |  August 26, 1920 |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | Silent |
| IMDb profile | |
The Head of Janus (Der Januskopf) was a 1920 silent film directed by F. W. Murnau. This adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was one of the earliest to reach film.
Released on September 17, 1920 by the Lipow Co., this is one of Murnau's lost films. The screenplay was written by Hans Janowitz, who collaborated with Carl Mayer in Das Kabinett des Dr Caligari in 1919. Whilst the reels themselves do not survive, the scripts and related production notes do - and from these we may piece together some of the more salient points of the plot.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Conrad Veidt plays Dr. Warren (the Dr. Jekyll character) who changes into Mr. O'Connor (a parallel of Mr. Hyde). This transformation is brought about not by experimentation with chemicals, as in Stevenson's original, but through the supernatural agency of a bust of Janus (the Roman god of the doorway), which Warren / O'Connor purchases in the opening sequence as a gift for his sweetheart, Jane Lanyon (Margarete Schlegel). Refusing the gift in horror, Warren / O'Connor is forced to keep the statuette himself.
It is at this point Dr Warren first transforms into the gruesome character Mr. O'Connor, and returns to Jane's house in a rage, kidnapping her and taking her back to his laboratory. Upon recovery, Warren is horrified by what he has done and tries to sell the bust at auction, but the hold it has over him forces him to buy it back again. A second transformation proves to be his ruin, committing random acts of violence in the streets.
Ultimately, Dr. Warren as Mr. O'Connor is forced to take poison after locking himself in his laboratory. He dies, clutching the statue to his chest.
[edit] Trivia
An intriguing note on the script points to possibly the first instance of a moving camera in cinematic history. When the doctor is climbing the stairs to his laboratory, Janowitz's notes state 'Camera follows him up the stairs'. Is this a use of the mobile camera, long before Lupu Pick and his so-called 'unchained camera' (Entfesselte Kamera)? Or did Janowitz simply mean that a single fixed camera should capture the entire shot with a wide-angled lens? Without the reels, it would be impossible to say.
This adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's classic novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was released in the same year as an American version released by the John Barrymore / Paramount productions. Swedish film critics of the time found the Murnau production to be more 'artistic'.
[edit] Credited Cast
- Conrad Veidt as Dr. Warren/Mr. O'Connor
- Magnus Stifter as Dr. Warren's friend
- Margarete Schlegel as Jane Lanyon
- Willy Kaiser-Heyl
- Bela Lugosi as Dr. Warren's Butler
- Margarete Kupfer
- Danny Guertler
- Gustav Botz
- Jaro Fürth
- Hans Lanser-Rudolf
- Marga Reuter
[edit] Also known as
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (UK)
- Januskopf - Eine Tragödie am Rande der Wirklichkeit, Der (Germany)
- Love's Mockery
- Schrecken (Germany) (trailer title)
- The Head of Janus
- The Janus Head
- The Two-Faced Man (USA) (informal literal English title)
