Unheimliche Geschichten
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| Unheimliche Geschichten | |
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| Directed by | Richard Oswald |
| Produced by | Gabriel Pascal |
| Written by | Richard Oswald |
| Starring | Paul Wegener Harald Paulsen Roma Bahn Mary Parker Gerhard Bienert |
| Distributed by | J.H. Hoffberg Company Inc. |
| Release date(s) |  1932 |
| Running time | 89 minutes |
| Language | Silent film German (intertitles) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Unheimliche Geschichten (Uncanny Stories) is a 1932 German horror anthology film directed by the prolific Austrian film director Richard Oswald, starring Paul Wegener, and produced by Gabriel Pascal. It was a remake of an earlier silent film also directed by Oswald.
The story is adapted from a book anthology by the same title that includes several macabre short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson. The film follows three of them: The Black Cat, Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather, and The Suicide Club. [1] [2]
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[edit] Plot
A crazed scientist (Paul Wegener), driven even crazier by his nagging wife, murders her and walls her up in a basement. He then flees as the police and a reporter set out to track him down. Finally captured by the police, the scientist is sent to an insane asylum. In the next story an asylum inmate (again Wegener) manages to free himself, lock up the guards, and release all the inmates to take charge of the asylum. In command of things again, the mad scientist turns the institution into a Suicide Club (Based on the short stories by Stevenson), The climax of the film comes as two members of the Suicide Club fight it out in a wild duel.
The film's three stories are additionally held together by the devise of a black cat (based on Poe's story) that continues throughout all of them, a plot devise that was resurrected in Stephen King's anthology horror film Cat's Eye in 1985. The film, which succeeds as it was intended, as a parody of the golden age of German expressionist cinema, turns out to be a surprisingly good black-comedy with lots of tongue in cheek, It remains on many short-lists of forgotten classics of German cinema.
[edit] Worldwide Releases
The film is also known by numerous other titles including Fünf unheimliche Geschichten (Germany), Five Sinister Stories (International: English title), Ghastly Tales (USA), Tales of the Uncanny, The Living Dead (USA), and Unholy Tales (International: English title). [3] The film was later badly reedited for an American market rerelease known as "The Living Dead" with many of the comedic scenes taken out along with most of its cleverest intentions.
[edit] 1919 Silent Version
Oswald directed and produced an earlier silent adaptation of the same book in 1919. [4] The later 1932 version, however, overseen by the arguably more competent producer Gabriel Pascal, is the better known and better reviewed version. The 1919 film does not include the cat devise, which was an invention of producer Pascal in 1932.
[edit] Trivia
- Three of Stephen King's anthology books are published in German under the subtitle Unheimliche Geschichten. [5])
[edit] References
- New York Times, Movies, Wednesday, March 28, 2007, [6]
[edit] External links
- Unheimliche Geschichten (1932) at the Internet Movie Database
- Unheimliche Geschichten (1919) at the Internet Movie Database
- Movie Description
- Movie Review
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