FEBRUARY 17
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (dir: Robert Weine, 1919, 75 mins., Germany)
The movie that started it all—The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a prototype of both the German Expressionist school and the horror film genre. Legend has it that because of electricity rationing at the Ufa studio in post-WWI Germany, the lighting and chiaroscuric contrast of blacks and whites were instead painted onto the sets—the result is a nightmarish rendition of the modern world!  As horror formula, it introduces the protracted flashback and subjective narration, the carnival setting, the somnambulist killer and the power-mad doctor/scientist. Starring Werner Krauss as Dr. Caligari and Conrad Veidt as Cesare the Somnambulist. (Note: Veidt would flee the Nazis and emigrate to Hollywood where he was often cast as a German officer, i.e. Casablanca) . Silent with score. Restored and distributed by Kino Releasing. Print coutesy UR, Boatwright Library.

FEBRUARY 24
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (dir: F. W. Murnau, 1922, 93 mins., Germany)
An unauthorized rendition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Murnau’s Nosferatu might be the quintessential vampire tale. Here Graf Orleck (played by the notorious Max Schreck who was reputed to have beena vampire himself!), is not the slick, debonair icon of Hollywood and Bela Lugosi (or even George Hamilton), but a fiendish, earthy, repulsive creature with oversized ears and taloned fingers. Unlike most German Expressionist films, Nosferatu was largely shot on location and its landscapes, villages and castle were filmed in the Carpathian mountains. Other German directors, like Fritz Lang or Ernst Lubitsch built entire forests and towns in the studio. Murnau would later direct the acclaimed The Last Laugh/Der Letzte Mann (’24) and Sunrise (’28) before his untimely death in a car crash in 1929.
Silent with score. Restored and distributed by Kino Releasing. Print courtesy UR, Boatwright Library.

MARCH 3
The Phantom of the Opera (dir: Rupert Julian, 1925-29, 98 mins., U.S.)
Perhaps the greatest American actor of the silent era, Lon Chaney is at the height of his talent in this definitive version of The Phantom of the Opera. An embittered, horribly disfigured composer, Erik the Phantom, lives in the deeper recesses of the Parisian sewers under the Opera House. He becomes desperately, jealously infatuated with Christine (Mary Philbin), the golden-voiced star of the company and yearns for a voice like hers for his own compositions. Finally, he kidnaps her, for she will be his protegee. There have been numerous adaptations, but this is generally considered to be the best. Chaney’s make-up sessions reportedly involved the placement of springs and clamps into his mouth and nostrils to achieve ultimate effect—one of the reasons he was known as “the man of a thousand faces.”
Restored and distributed by Milestone Films.

MARCH 10
The Lodger (dir: Alfred Hitchcock, 1926, 80 mins., U.K.)
Considered the first real Hitchcock film—complete with the style, themes and symbology of his later masterpieces, The Lodger is his version of Jack the Ripper. Like many British, Hitchcock was taken with “real crime” fiction, and here he leads the audience toward the obvious suspect—the dark mysterious lodger -- only to pull the rug out at the last minute with an ending that only furthers our own disquiet. Stylistically, Hitchcock was influenced by the German school, and his first direction efforts were even filmed at the Ufa (where he witnessed the great Murnau at work!). His expressive use of light and shadow, and subjective p.o.v. shots would become part of his enduring stylistic stamp, but even in The Lodger (only his fifth film) are evidence of that greatness. Silent. Print courtesy VCU, Cabell Library.