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By PAUL BRENNER
Paul Leni is the forgotten man of silent German cinema, mostly because of his untimely death at 44
and the "lost film" status of most of his work. But now Kino Video has released in a "restored, authorized edition" his
rare expressionist bauble, "Waxworks" (at the time, one of the most famed of German films) from 1924.
The Caligari settings are rampant in this anthology curio on tyranny concerning an itinerant writer (William Dieterle,
later a house director from Warner Brothers golden age -- "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Life of Emil Zola," "Dark
City" -- who gets a job in a carnival sideshow, composing outré tales of three waxwork maniacs -- Haran al-Raschid (Emil
Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Viedt), and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krause).
The Jannings tale is a cute yarn about a caliph suffering from satyriasis. The Veidt episode revels in lurid torture.
The Krause finale is much shorter but more nightmarish as the strolling figure of Jack the Ripper provokes the writer,
through unnerving superimpositions and disturbing multiple dissolves, to stab himself (albeit with his pen). Leni's film
doesn't hold together and ultimately it turns into an expressionist lark, but its previously lost film status makes it
fascinating to watch.
Special features include an excerpt from Douglas Fairbanks' "The Thief of Baghdad" ("Waxworks" is said to have inspired
Fairbanks' film) and a delightful short film of Paul Leni, "Rebus Film I," which is a quirky cinematic crossword puzzle. |
