Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Spooktaober 27: The Head of Janus (1920)

 


I know... this is two Conrad Veidt films in as many days, but this lost gem is so much more.  It has connections to so many other really famous horror and near horror films (Karl Freund was the chief cinematographer), many of them amongst the most well known silents films out there. The most recognizable connection is that it's a Murnau film from 1920. Murnau needs no introduction; he was famous in his native Germany and later in his adopted United States. Veidt would follow a similar path, via the U.K. But, it is yet another player in this silent German adaptation of Stevenson's Jekyll And Hyde, who became a much bigger fixture the American psyche than Veidt or Murnau combined who is of interest here: Bela Lugosi. Lugosi who was famously Hungarian, born in what is now Romania and a World War I veteran, made his way to Germany after the war (he had already appeared in a Hungarian production directed by future Casablanca director Michael Curtiz), where he appeared in a handful of films, including this one. The film is lost, but stills do survive. We are fortunate that one of them contains Lugosi in his role as Dr. Warren's Diener. 

 


 

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