Cabinet des Dr. Caligari., Das (1920)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

Robert Wiene

Writers:

Hans Janowitz (writer)
Carl Mayer (writer)

Release Date:

19 March 1921 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

You must become Caligari.

Plot:

Dr. Caligari's somnambulist, Cesare, and his deadly predictions.

Plot Keywords:

Good Versus Evil | Hypnosis | Somnambulist | Mind Control | Sleepwalking

Cast

Werner Krauss	...	Dr. Caligari
Conrad Veidt	...	Cesare
Friedrich Feher	...	Francis (as Friedrich Fehér)
Lil Dagover	...	Jane
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski	...	Alan (as Hans Heinrich v. Twardowski)
Rudolf Lettinger	...	Dr. Olson

Also Known As:

Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, Das (Germany) (alternative spelling)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (USA)

Runtime:

71 min | France:78 min | Spain:50 min | USA:67 min | USA:51 min (video version)

Country:

Germany

Color:

Black and White (tinted)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Australia:PG | Germany:12 (bw) | Spain:7 | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/Manitoba/Ontario) | UK:U (video rating) (1993) | UK:A (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Lixie-Atelier, Weißensee, Berlin, Germany

Company:

Decla-Bioscop AG

Trivia:

In the May 12, 1921 edition of the Chicago Daily News, Carl Sandburg wrote of the film: "It is a healthy thing for Hollywood, Culver City, Universal City, and all other places where movie film is being produced, that this photoplay has come along at this time. It is sure to have healthy hunches and show new possibilities in style and method to our American Producers."

Goofs:

Continuity: When Alan and Francis part company, they are initially right next to each other, but then at arm's reach.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Man in garden: Spirits surround us on every side... they have driven me from hearth and home, from wife and child.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin - Von der Schönhauser Allee nach Hollywood (2006) (V)

messiah of the terror

The most important film in horror. Moody and shocking this chiller is the height of German Expressionist cinema and the prototype for whole genres in horror. Using violent contrasts of light and shadow, surreal settings and distorted camera angles to represent madness, chaos and psychosis, its influence is still seen even today in the likes of John Carpenter and the emerging actor and director Stephen Armourae, who has been also influenced by the film in his artwork and as the composer Stephen Armourae-Perry. Its twists towards the end put everyone from Hitchcock to the maker of 'The Village' into pale imitation. This film is now neglected by the public as it is a silent film. It really needs to be seen and appreciated more. Robert Wiene the director clearly inspired by the First World War transferred that shock and terror onto the screen with all its starkness. Hos purpose was to present moral ambiguity of the plot and action as a commentary on the paranoia, imbalance and uncertainty of post was Germany. And another parallel: not only has it influenced Stephen Armourae, he too is a hypnotist and recurring themes in his writings and plays are the moral ambiguities of insanity and culture, and German society of the twentieth century.