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According to Murnau's bi ographer Lotte Eisner, this episode ends when "the hermi t changes into a vast angel of death, Lucifer, who goes through the palace crushing beneath hi s scorn the medi ocrity of mortals" The second tale finds the Devil in the pose of a Spani sh adventurer involved in the Byzantine intrigues surrounding the poisonous Lucretia Borgia in Renaissance Italy. It's a particular pity that no copy of SATANAS has surfaced, considering that it features some of the silent era's most talented artists.

The great screen vi l l ai n Conrad Veidt was cast in the title role of the Devi l , a part tailor-made for his si ngul ar presence. A fascinating missi ng piece in the mosaic of the Satanic fi lmography.

When a rakish Devi l decides to take a vacation from hi s duties in Hel l , he chooses Berl i n's most fashionable street Kurfurstendamm as the perfect relaxation spot. Setting hi msel f up as a film producer, he soon finds that the young women of 1 s Berl i n are too wicked for even him to handle.

After a series of amorous adventures. Satan returns dismayed to the less troublesome atmosphere of the inferno. This seems to have been a showcase for the talents of early movie star Asta Ni elsen, who played no less than four of the women causing mischi ef for the Devil. Comedies were not Conrad Veidt's usual bai l iwick, so this woul d have been an odd departure for him.

Cast i n the sinister title role was a relatively unknown Hungari an stage actor then working i n the thriving Berl i n fi l m worl d.

One can onl y wonder what lessons in supernatural vi l l ai ny Lugo s i learned while playing a black magi ci an i n thi s forgotten si l ent production, a fi l m that preceded hi s epochal role as DRACULA by eleven years. Collaborating with the ubi quitous Henri k Gal een, Paul Wegener wrote a script that returned the Golem to his original time i n the late fifteenth century, realizing that his earlier updating of the legend in 1 91 4 had missed the mark.

Previous screen Lucifers had been portrayed by human actors. Here, the baleful bei ng conjured by Loew is a pure cinematic i l l usion. The unearthly atmosphere of the scene suggests, for the first time on film, the i nhuman nature of the Devil. Ashtaroth material izes as a giant di sembodi ed head glowing in the darkness. That the scene still retains its power is a credit to the ski l l of Carl Boese, who engi neered the startling effects. The direction of Wegener, the special effects and trick photography of Carl Boese, the expressive camera work of Karl Freund, have all been justly praised, assuring that their achievements have lasted l ong after the days of the silent fi l m have faded.

Gi ven carte blanche to construct an Expressionist vi si on of the magical ol d town of Prague, Poelzig, with the assistance of his wi fe Marlene, bui l t an al i en cityscape that is surely one of the most memorable sights i n the cinema. Si l houetted against a starry night sky, the sl anted houses look like menacing demon shapes, al ive with secrets. One can believe that the demon Ashtaroth would gladl y visit the depths of such structures, and that the Golem can wal k through these serpentine streets.

The shapes of the houses, doorways, and even the furniture, i n DER GOLEM echo the forms of the film's characters, as if a magician's curse has transformed flesh into stone. True to Poelzig's concept of architectural sound, his esoteric recreation of Prague does indeed sing a strange music.

Poelzig's Prague i s a physical metaphor for the Golem's homunculus theme, that of an inorganic being of clay brought to life by the Bl ack Arts. Not Prague and not any other city. Rather, it is a city-poem, a dream, an architectural paraphrase on the theme 'Golem. Poelzig's eccentricities, magical ideas, and sometimes unpleasantly domi neeri ng personal ity would not be forgotten by Ulmer, who eventually became a film di rector in his own right. Far from Berl i n, on a Burbank, California soundstage, Ul mer woul d create a curious cinematic monument to Poelzig that would ironically have more lasting i mpact than any of the mystical architect's professi onal accompl i shments.

Di rected with a master painter's eye by former opera si nger Benjamin Christensen, HAxAN is sui gener i s, a rarity among si l ent films. It must be admitted that even some of the greatest masterpieces of the 1 s can seem creaki l y old-fashioned to modern audi ences.

Frequently hampered by static camera work and out-moded acting styles more suited for the stage than the cinema, many silent films must be judged by the standards of the ti mes in which they were produced if they are to be enjoyed. Not so with the dynami c HAxAN, a work of pure ci nema that seems as lively and inventive today as it di d i n the 1 s. Perhaps the timeless qual ity marki ng most of Christensen's fi l m is due to the fact that it so faithfully captures an atmosphere of true legend and folk tale, evoking archetypal images that create the impression of hexed engravings come to life.

Those sequences freed of the i mpedi ments of plot boast scenes of demonic debauchery that rival the Satani c masterpi eces of Hieronymous Bosch. At times, the viewer is carried away by the ki nd of bel l adonna visions once attributed to bedev iled witches at their sabbats. Chri stensen's lush i l lustrative style blazed the way for the evolving cinema to become a sort of movi ng painting, an art that communicated i n sheer i magery.

Te film consists of several documentary-like episodes tracing the history of witchcraft from the legend of the Black Sabbath to the tortures of the I nquisition. Presiding over a wi l d bacchanal with obvious gusto, Christensen's Satan is lust personified.

His Devi l i s portrayed as a wholly positive figure of liberation, symbol i zi ng the joys of the flesh. HAxAN reveals the Trickster side of the Devil, a mischievous rebel against the negatively presented austere sexual repression of the Church. This wide disparity between these various representations accentuates the shapeshifting nature of the Devil's being.

Christensen di dn't shy away from recreating the erotic fantasies that swirled around visions of the Devil's sabbath. His writhing witches di spl ay more exposed flesh than was seen in the Satani c ci nema for decades to come.

The del iberately blasphemous, frankl y anti-Christian tone scandali zed Danish audiences i n 1 I ndeed, few Satanic films i n the interveni ng decades dared to present such a ful l -on assault on the Church as is mounted by Christensen. The comically played priests and nuns shown i n the film are depicted as deserving targets for the Devil's mockery, recal l i ng the more diabol ical moments of Bunuel.

It is a testament to HAxAN's enduring power that when the fi l m was re-released duri ng the witchcraft craze of the 1 s, modern audiences found it as compelling as ever. Distributed to underground film venues, the silent film's ol d ti tl e cards were repl aced by the voice of Wi l l i am S.

Burroughs, who narrated the events i n hi s dry, sardoni c Missouri drawl. Purists were left aghast by this tampering. At the ti me of this writing, paranoid Christian activists decry the supposed malevolent influence of occult themes in movies and music as a pre-apocalyptic token of modern times.

Of course, most of the all eged "Satanic" influences cited are i magi nary, or of a puerile nature with no genui ne connection to the magi cal tradition.

It i s interesting to consider that genui ne magi cal influences were actually i ncorporated i n one of the German si lent cinema's masterpieces. The film's al most tangi bl e atmosphere of dread has been noted by many, but its occult symbolism has been al l but i gnored. Di rected by F. While the names and locations were changed from Stoker's Dracula to avoi d charges of copyright infringement, the pl ot and characters are clearly recognizable to anyone who has read the novel or seen any of its i nnumerabl e remakes.

Graf Orl ok Max Schreck i s a demonoi d creature of clearly i nhuman appearance, a bei ng that might have been summoned from the netherworl d.

Stoker's Dracula can blend in easily with the teeming mi l l ions of London, but Orl ok is an entity born of medieval nightmare. A house agent travels to the haunted ruins where Graf Orlok resides, bearing a mysterious document from hi s employer, Herr Knock. When Orl ok reads this missive, we see that it is no ordi nary text, but a coded message consisting of occult seals and talismans culled from demonol ogi cal texts.

Hutter is the unwitting courier of one magi cal i nitiate, unknowi ngl y transmitting a secret message to another adept. Knock's al most religious devotion to his master Orlok mi ght also signify the relation between a black magici an and Satan hi mself. The man known i n the outer world as Albin Grau was recognized by hi s fellow adepts in Berl i n's thriving occult community by his magical name, Frater Pacitus.

The OTO understood themselves to be the authentic heirs of the forbidden tradition of the Kni ghts Templar, that doomed fraternity exterminated by the King of France for their rumoured participation in black magical ritual. Of central importance to the German OTO's studies was the mysterious deity Baphomet, l i nked by centuries of occult tradition with Lucifer. In the magical cosmology of Grau, whose sex magical practices were most definitely of the authentic left hand path, Lucifer was not viewed as the sin-punishing demon of Christian myth, but as the bearer of light who i l l uminated manki nd in the form of the Edenic serpent.

These ideas were expanded upon by Grau's close associate Gregor Gregori us, author of Satanic Magic and founder of the secretive left hand path sodal ity known as the Fraternitas Saturni. As one of a company of soldiers bi l leted i n the home of a Serbian peasant, the occultist heard how his host's father purportedly returned from the dead in 1 and terrorized the town until he was dispatched with the traditional stake in the heart. According to the peasant, his father was known as a Nosferatu.

Several years later, while Grau was searching for exterior locations for the vampire's castle in the rugged Tatra mountains of Czechoslovakia, he stopped in the "ol d alchemist's city" of Prague.

There, he happened to meet one of the sol diers who had heard the Serbian tale of the Nosferatu, who he informed of the forthcoming fil m. The spell of Prague, that legendary town of black magic, was again connected with one of Germany's best-known demonic films.

Further magical impetus can be found i n the screenplay by Hanns Ewers' personal secretary Henrik Galeen, which is filled with black magical al lusions. In a pentagram-bedecked tome seen in the film, we read that Nosferatu came "from the seed of Belial", one of the demons traditionally summoned by Goetic magicians. This Satanic essence of the vampire legend was not to resurface again i n the cinema until the 1 s, when a small subgenre of British fi l ms concerning the unholy undead took shape.

Nosferatu's opponent, Professor Bulwer, is described by Galeen as " a Paracelsian", evoking the famed alchemist Paracelcus. Prana, in the yogic tradition of I ndi a, is the sacred breath that i s sai d to endow l i fe with its essence. Adapted for the screen from a 1 roman a clef of the same name by Wi l l i am Somerset Maugham, the pi cture revolves around the eponymous sorcerer Ol iver Haddo, a thinly disguised poison-pen portrait of Crowley.

Unequivocally the twentieth century's best-known occultist, Crowley's name was synonymous with "devil worship" to the undiscriminating readers of the s popul ar press. Indeed, although he has long since been adopted by the new age movement as a harml ess exponent of human potential, Crowley continues to be thought of as the bl ackest of black magicians in less esoteric circles.

In fact, Crowley was not a Satanist by any definition of the word. When writers on the cinema have previously explored the films Crowley inspired, they have often tended to rely on inaccurate information, repeating dimly understood mi sinformation. In a sense, this i s understandable. Even before hi s death in 1 , Crowley was more myth than man, transformed by the sensationalistic press of hi s day into a black magical bogeyman of epi c proportions. I t i s to this melodramatic reputation, rather than the somewhat more squalid real ity, that film-makers have turned to as a ready-made template for their screen Satanists.

His advocacy of the visionary usefulness of drugs and his enthusiastic promulgation of sexual magi c were more than enough to outrage the publ i c sensibilities of hi s ti me. Affecting a deliberately sinister appearance with shaven head and practiced stare, Crowley's escapades inevitably served as grist for the mi l l of the scandal-starved medi a.

It was thi s larger-than-life image of menace created by a string of l uri d articles and a number of horror novels and stories based on hi s life that attracted the attention of fi l m-makers. Natural ly, the real ity is more compl icated. Born as Edward Alexander Crowley in 1 , he seems to have spent the enti rety of his troubled life in violent reaction to the fanatic Christianity of hi s parents, devotees of the puritanical Plymouth Brethren sect.

Even as a chi l d, he claimed, his mother referred to hi m as the Beast, after the Antichrist described i n the Bi bl e' s apocalyptic Revelations. He came to take thi s appel lation seriously, declaring himself to be , the destined destroyer of Christianity and prophet of a new era.

In 1 , following his education at Cambridge, he was initiated into the quasi-Masonic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization his contentious personal ity helped to destroy. He did not discover his life's work until he travelled to Cairo in 1 There, he reportedly received a communication from an astral entity named Aiwass, who di ctated a text entitled The Book Of The Law.

Crowley eventual l y came to accept this visionary document as the foundation of a newly revealed rel i gi on, Thelema. With messianic fervour, Crowley proselytized for a revolutionary era in human history he called the Aeon of Horus, after the hawk faced Egyptian deity.

A prodigiously prolix writer, Crowley produced a corpus of work that ranges from serious studies of the occult arts like Magick In Theory And Practice, reams of wildly uneven poetry, pornography both sophomoric and subl i me, a handful of sel f-referential novels incl uding Diary Of A Drug Fiend, among hi s many other often self-published volumes.

He was a world travell er of i mmense wanderlust, and a well-respected mountaineer and athlete who al l but destroyed his fragile health with generous helpings of heroin, cocaine and ether. He could be an amusing and witty ironist, but seemed to possess l ittle sense of humour about himself. Crowley's life-long study of Tantric sexual yoga and his theoretical veneration of the femi ni ne principle would seem to mark him as an adherent of the left hand path.

Crowley sincerely insisted that he was a white magician, seeking that oneness with the universe that is the mark of the right hand path. Certainly, the antique pantheon of gods he revered were not of infernal provenance.

Although he called himself by such seemingly Satani c names as the Great Beast and Baphomet, the mysterious devil-god of the Kni ghts Templars, his magi cal phi losophy i s far too compl icated - if not incoherent - to l i mi t wi th any one denominational l abel. His entire life suggests that he was ri ddl ed with a deep seated confusion about his own spiritual identity. I n his 1 diary, he writes, " I may be a Black Magi ci an, but I'm a bloody great one. One of his better poems, " Hymn To Lucifer", presents a heroic, Mi ltonian view: "With nobl e passion, sun-souled Lucifer swept through the dawn colossal.

Breathed life into the steri l e universe" The ode concludes with an affirmation of the fallen angel's struggl e agai nst Jehovan authority.

Lucifer, Crowley expounds, "With Love and Knowledge, drove out i nnocence The Key of Joy is Disobedience. While his detractors may have gone too far in bl ackening his reputation, his followers have just as si mpl istically rehabi l itated hi m as the al l-wise St. Lest too romantic a picture be pai nted, it i s well to remember that his writings and his personal relations were shot through with a near pathological misogyny that often led to wretched mistreatment of his wives and mistresses.

The Beast also evidenced a mi ndless cruelty toward ani mal s from an early age, and his espousal of narcotic il l umination led hi m to the depths of heroin addiction. He often came off l i ke a typical occult confidence artist, at one poi nt sel l i ng vials of his sperm as "rejuvenation ointment" In 1 , the twenty-seven year old Crowley was a fixture i n the cafe society of Paris. Among the bel l etristic types who were the habitues of a restaurant called Le Chat Blanc, he met the young Wi l l i am Somerset Maugham, a fel l ow Engl i shman of equal l y acidic tongue and bitchy demeanour Maugham, recal l i ng thei r encounter, wrote that he "took an i mmedi ate di sl i ke to hi m, but he interested me and amused me.

However, his remarks concerni ng Maugham's book provide some clues as to how he must have responded to seeing himself portrayed as a human monster on the screen. Crowley, dripping with sarcasm, writes of bei ng drawn to a newly publ ished book in 1 "The title attracted me strongly, The Magician. The author, bl ess my soul!

No other than my old and valued friend, Wi l l i am Somerset Maugham. So he had really written a book - who would have believed it! The Magician was, in fact. Chafi ng at what he perceived to be Hol l ywood's phi l istine approach to the cinema, he moved to France in the mi d twenties, purchasi ng his own film studio in Nice.

One of the first properties he acqui red was Somerset Maugham's novel, conveniently set i n France. I n typically malicious fashion, Maugham let it be known that he di sl i ked I ngram's adaption of his work. Returning the compl iment, Ingram responded that he had done the best he coul d wi th such poor material. Wegener was cast as Oliver Haddo, giving the German heavy the opportunity to create one of hi s most memorabl e occult vi l l ai ns.

Apparently, Wegener's sometimes abrasive personal ity did not ingratiate himself to the cast and crew. The German actor would fl y into rages at hi s personal make-up artist, and the tantrums disrupted shooting. I ngram's gi fted director of photography, John Seitz, regarded Wegener as a pompous ham. Wegener's presence in the fi l m accentuates I ngram's obvious attempt to steep his fi l m in some of the same Expressionist atmosphere he admired in German cinema's treatment of occult subjects.

The fi l m revolves, like so many of the silent cinema's Satanic films, around the dramatic conceit of the homunculus. The mage Oliver Haddo, a hypnotic practitioner of the Black Arts, plans to follow an ancient recipe for the creation of artificial life. Haddo has already created his homunculus, but it remains i nanimate. To fulfil the formula. Haddo is dastardly enough to abduct Margaret on the eve of her wedding, to assure that she retains the maidenhood he requires for his experiment.

Haddo absconds with his Margaret to a desolate tower, where he has bui l t an alchemical laboratory. I n the fi l m's most memorable sequence, Margaret hal l ucinates that Haddo has brought her to Hell, inspired by the flames of his al chemist's lab. As the glowering magician leads her through the inferno.

A statue of the horned Pan comes to life, tempting the virgin with devilish ardour Inevitably, just when Haddo has secured Margaret for the necessary heart removal, her fiance saves the day. In a fiery climax which influenced the finales of hundreds of films to come, Haddo, his homunculus, and hi s mountain-top eyrie are all destroyed by a suitably infernal conflagration.

Marred by a certain static qual ity, the great strength of the picture is Ingram's sense of pictorial i l l ustration. Wegener's feverish performance is overly melodramatic by today's standards, but he dominates the fi l m with his unsettling presence. The genui nel y ethereal qual ity of Alice Terry provides a perfect complement to Wegener's resplendent i ni quity. The ani mated statue of Pan in the Hell scene was played with bri o by a charismatic Folies Bergere dancer known onl y as Stowitts.

The locals, though gl ad to have a thriving film studi o i n their back yard, were outraged by the orgy scenes, explicit for thei r time. Although the Faust l egend has inspired efforts from some of the ci nema's greatest talents, F. Murnau's masterpiece is the definitive version, a remarkable visua I achi evement deserving of comparison to Goethe's literary rendition. With total control of his mystical mise-en-scene, Murnau creates a vividly realized folktale of mythic di mensions that brought fil m-making to previously uni magi ned artistic hei ghts.

The picture's stature has inspired superlatives si nce its release, so I won't be redundant by addi ng too many more hosannas to the existing chorus of praise. Carl Hoffman's excellent chi aroscuro photography, with its then i nnovative use of travel l i ng shots, adds immeasurably to the fi l m's beauty.

Nevertheless, second choice Jannings brings Mephisto to crackling life in one of that actor's finest characterizations, and one of the most ful ly-real ized incarnations of the Devi l ever screened. The ageless i ntel l igence expressed beneath Janni ngs' wily persona suggests the mysterious fascination Mephisto exercises on the bri l l iant Dr Faust. It's appropriate that the production of this l andmark Satani c fi l m functioned as a ki nd of school for future diabolical fi l m-makers.

Both later fi l ms bear the mark of Murnau's influence. FAUST is a rarity in the Satanic cinema; a big-budget major studio production deal i ng with the Devil not as the simple subject for a horror film, but from a genui ne metaphysical perspective. Lang's flawed but compelling early science fiction vision showed us that Satan ism wi l l still be practiced in the gleaming vistas of the future. Whi l e Lang's fi l m is largely concerned with creating the spectacle of a futuristic world, the Satanic subplot of the picture has often been overlooked.

Hidden beneath the vast skyscrapers of tomorrow's city is the alchemist's l ab of Rotwang Rudolf Kl ei n-Rogge , a state of the art Satani c technol ogist who was the prototype for a whol e school of mad scientists to come. Kl ei n Rogge's Faustian scientist is a bri l l i antly di abol i c figure, but it's the seventeen year old Hel m as the si nister robotrix who really shi nes.

In a scene that powerfully documents the pre-apocalyptic cl i mate of Berlin i n the mi d-twenties, Hel m reveals herself as the Whore of Babylon duri ng an erotic dance at Metropolis' pal ace of pleasure. Onl y thi rteen years had passed si nce Stellan Rye di rected the first version of that Faustian tale, but advances in the craft and technology of cinema since those pioneering days had opened up possibi lities even the visionary Ewers could not have i magi ned.

Thi s statement underscores a growing conflict between Gal een and hi s mentor Ewers. Whi l e Ewers continued to explore hi s fascination wi th the occult, his younger protege preferred a more modern, less supernatural approach to the fantastic cinema. In any event, the fi nal product - with a screenplay co-written by Gal een and Ewers - was no less di abol i cal than the ori ginal version.

I f anything, the si nister performance of Werner Krauss as the Mephistophelean Scapi nel l i was several shades blacker than that of John Gottowt in the production.

A wild eyed, goateed stranger outlined against a windswept heath, hi s every grand gesture projecting menacing shadows, Krauss is the picture of Expressionist evi l. It's a performance that ranks with Krauss's earl i er enactment of that other ominous Italian, Dr Cal i gari , in 1 91 9.

More importantly, he eerily conveys the pychic disruption of a man without a soul i n the scenes that follow his spl i tti ng into a demonic Doubl e. The coming political maelstrom in Germany made this fateful production into the end of an era. Conrad Veidt would end up escapi ng the Third Reich to Hol lywood, where he would die an earl y death after being typecast as a movie Nazi. Werner Krauss would remai n in Germany, participating i n some of the most notorious anti-Semitic films produced by the Hitler regime.

As for the dark destiny of Hanns Heinz Ewers, we shal l consider hi s l ast days i n the following chapter. By 1 , America's cinema i nnovator D. Given to dri nk, and unwi l l i ng to adapt to more modern techniques of film-making, the legendary director struggled to maintain a hol d i n the industry he had helped to shape.

The picture was actually developed by Cecil B. De Mi l le; Griffith was only called in as a last-mi nute replacement when De Mi l l e broke wi th Paramount. To his credit, Griffith disl i ked the tedious and moralistic 1 Marie Corel l i novel upon whi ch the fi l m was based, but he d id what he coul d wi th the project handed down to hi m. The director handles the prefatory scenes of Satan's dismissal from Paradise with his old verve. From this mythic prologue, we descend to earth, where garret-bound starving novelist Geoffrey Tempest Ricardo Cortez meets and falls i n love with fellow struggl i ng writer Mavis Carol Dempster.

This blasphemy encourages a certain elegant Prince, calling himself Lucio de Ri manez the incredibly suave Adolphe Menjou to take the lad under hi s dark wing and introduce hi m to London's smartest society. The mysterious Pri nce tel l s hi s charge that he wi l l be given a fortune if he obeys hi s commands.

The Devil orders the writer to marry the Princess, who is soon revealed to be a gold-digger i n love with Lucifer. Tempest leaves his new wife, who ki l l s herself as al l si nful women in such films usually do. When the remorseful writer wants to return to hi s still starving first love Mavis, the Prince reveals hi mself i n his full Satanic grandeur, threatening to take away the young man's fortune.

Tempest renounces his di abol i c patron and ends up back in the wretched garret with Mavis, where he belongs. Adolphe Menjou, who practically invented the part of the charmi ng aristocratic cad, plays hi s Prince of Darkness perfectly, setting a hi gh standard for all the upper-class Evil beings who followed hi m. Smoul deri ng Lya De Putti vamps it up as the erotic epitome of the silent movie diva.

Griffith, even at thi s late stage in his career, lends conviction and artistry to much of the fi l m, which is certai nly the best of the Satani c films produced in America duri ng the 1 s.

These pl easures more than allow the di scerni ng viewer to di spense with Carel l i 's ki l ljoy message. Many of Europe's most extraordi nary film talents were drawn to the fl ame of Hol l ywood as the si l ent era faded out.

In California, the Dane's talents were inspired by the diaboli cal Muse for the second time in his career I n 1 , he was gi ven the task of adapting A.

Merr itt's best-sel l i ng novel Seven Footprints To Satan to the screen. Merritt, known as "The Lord of Fantasy", specialized i n rousi ng mystic-themed adventures set i n exotic locales. In Seven Footprints, a stalwart explorer i s ki dnapped by a mysterious secret soci ety and brought to their l eader, the masked mastermi nd Satan. Although the reader i s i ni ti al l y led to beli eve that the omni sci ent Satan of Seven Footprints is the dark l ord manifested on earth, he i s eventually reveal ed to be a mortal cri mi nal geni us enamoured of Satani c symbolism.

Merritt's central character, Satan, i s one of the most memorabl e super-vi l l ai ns in pul p literature - every bit the peer of Sax Rohmer's insidious yellow peri l Dr Fu Manchu, and l an Fleming's Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

The complexity which Merritt endows hi s Satan raises hi m far above the standards of ordinary escapist literature. I n fact, the sinister tone of the novel was watered down consi derably in the fi l m, which is pl ayed as far-fetched comedy. Merritt, l i ke so many authors mangl ed by Hol lywood, was said to be extremely di spleased with the transformation of hi s dark crime mystery into farce. Despite this inappropri ate transformation, Christensen's extravagant visual artistry is in plenti ful suppl y.

Satan's fantastic throneroom is a most impressive sight, wi th its bat-wi nged fi re breathing dragons, sl i nky harem gi rls, and robed and hooded potentate seated i mperi ousl y above his swank society disciples.

There's genui ne menace i n the sombre hal l s of Satan's hi dden mansion, a lavishly decorated gothic pi le suggesting at once the wealth and larger-than-life presence of its owner Fi l m critic Roger Starbuck, i n reviewing the fi l m, melodramatically followed the studio's request to keep the endi ng a secret.

Starbuck wrote: "To divulge i t is beyond our providence, for we, too, are sworn to secrecy born of a deep, dark oath at mi dni ght with one hand upon a cl oven hoof. Alas, it is the fi nal e that completely ruins the genui nel y disturbing cl i max of Merritt's ori gi nal work. The fantastic journey through Satan's realm is ul ti mately revealed as an elaborate prank played on the hero. While European fantastic fi l ms never flinched from del ineating psychic darkness, early Hollywood i nvari abl y copped out i n the last reel, tidily expl ai ni ng any discomforting el ements away.

The ki dnapped explorer was played by Creighton Hale, an i neffectual comi c hero i n the Harold Lloyd mode. Thel ma Todd, whose many stormy amours earned her the ni ckname "Hot Toddy", is the hero's di zzy dame sidekick.

Threateni ng the couple were Satan's menagerie of henchmen, a fanged grotesque known as Spi der, a cani ne-faced savant. To keep up with the new-fangled craze for "al l-tal ki ng" pi ctures a sound version was released the same year, which featured a silly spookhouse soundtrack, replete with screams, groans, and gunshots. Despite the visual splendour of Christensen's fi l m, the farcical tone make this a less than definitive adaptation of the far superior novel.

The heady mixture of Expressionism and Satan ism that spawned the black magi cal masterworks of the 1 s final l y burnt out with the advent of talki ng pictures.

However, that dark aesthetic would resurface in the New Worl d for one fi nal intense burst of bl ack flame. There's clearly some ki nd of obscure cycle in effect, dictating that every decade of intense activity wi l l be followed by a period of drought. Never i s this more pronounced than in the case of the 1 s. After the tidal wave of black magical productions that produced some of the silent era's recognized l andmarks, the economic crash of 1 seemed to si gnal an al most total cessation.

In both cases, these fi lms can be seen as the last l ingering echoes of the Satani c Expressionism of 1 s German cinema, rather than as any i ndi cation of a new d irection in the field.

Whi l e it's certainly enjoyable on that level, a closer analysis reveals a film of hidden depths that draws on the historic, magical, and aesthetic currents of the 1 s i n a fascinating and previously unexplored fashion. Di rected by the wilfully eccentric Edgar Ul mer, and featuring two marvellous performances by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi at the top of their respective forms, there's more than meets the eye here.

Let us systematically unravel the disparate strands woven together to produce a film that remains genuinely bizarre after more than hal f a century. Although bound by the constraints of the Hol lywood B picture, Ulmer managed to produce a singular work of art, as personal as any underground avant garde production.

Considered individually, the seemingly dissonant elements Ulmer brought together seem as if they couldn't possibly make sense in one fi l m. The plot, dream-like and inconsistent, is secondary to atmosphere and overall effect.

Somewhere i n Central Europe, the Al l isons, a honeymooni ng American mystery writer and hi s wife, embark on a train journey. On board, they meet the peculiar Dr. Vitus Werdegast Bela Lugosi , who explains that he's a World War I veteran, onl y recently freed from fifteen years as a prisoner of war Due to a n accident, the Al l isons and Werdegast must seek shelter for the ni ght at the forbidding futuristic home of Engineer Hjalmar Poelzig Boris Karloff , who happens to be Werdegast's former commanding officer in the war.

Our introduction to Poelzig finds hi m laying on a bed with his young wife Karen, a hi ghl y suggestive scene by 1 Hollywood standards. We learn that Poelzig's starkly modern mansion is built on the rui ns of Fortress Marmaros, over the graves of thousands of men who peri shed there during the war. It becomes evident that Werdegast, for all of hi s outward courtesy, is on a mission of vengeance, and that he's come to ki l l Poelzig for steali ng his wife and daughter from him during his long incarceration.

Werdegast's ethereal daughter Karen is now Poelzig's wife, replacing his wife, who di ed mysteriously. Poelzig leads Werdegast through the bowels of Marmoros, showing him the perfectly preserved bodies of women he's mounted in glass coffins. Who these women are is never explained, like so many of the film's mysteries. Perhaps the necrophile fetishism with which they're lovingly presented is a del i berate echo of Poe's penchant for beautiful morbidity. Official Trailer.

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