"The Student Of Prague" and German Expressionist Horror 1913-1926

THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE;
Today German cinema of the silent era is known for it's iconic works of Expressionist Horror such as "Nosferatu", "The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari", "Metropolis" and "Der Golem". In fact the Germans were rather late in producing film works of any note. The early decades of film from the 1890's to just before World War One belonged to the Americans, French, Italians, Danes, Swedes and to lesser extent the Russians while German films were mostly non-nondescript comedies, ribald burlesques and crime stories including several adaptations of Sherlock Holmes. German audiences were also quite happy to devour foreign films like the westerns of Bronco Billy, William S Hart and Tom Mix and the French comedies of Max Linder rather than demand any particularly distinctive homegrown product unlike the Italians and Russians who produced "Art Films" based on historical epics or the Danes and Swedes who produced films based on Nordic folklore and literary themes. These last films came to fascinate many German writers, stage directors and actors who felt a common Nordic kinship known as Expressionism.
Expressionism was a post-impressionist art movement influenced by the Dutch artist Van Gogh and more especially the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch and the playwrite Ibsen which would inspire Germans who strongly identified with their themes of deep emotional turmoil constrained by bourgeois convention, a strong connection with nature and a shared Nordic heritage. They would make these themes their own with a passionate intensity and thoroughness adding to them philosophical strains from Goethe, Schiller, Nietzche and Freud and a willingness to experiment quite lacking in previous German film-makers. This ambitious vision came from stage directors and playwrites like Max Reinhardt and Frank Wedekind who produced ground-breaking plays which attacked bourgeois values as well as challenging conventional stage designs with minimalist sets influenced by constructionist and cubist art, impressionist lighting and dramatic and physical acting styles influenced by modern dance. Previously the Expressionist theatre world had not taken film very seriously as a medium thinking it fit only for low-brow entertainment but the Scandinavian films (which were quite popular in Germany, especially those of actress Asta Nielsen) convinced them of the artistic possibilities.
Max Reinhardt's theatre troupe contained many figures who would become crucial figures in Expressionist films including actors Conrad Veidt, Werner Krause, Emil Jannings, Paul Wegener, Max Shreck, John Gottowt, Lil Dagover ("Caligari"), Greta Schroder ("Nosferatu") and Lyda Salmonova ("Der Golem") along with directors Ernest Lubitsch and Paul Leni and set designer Ernest Stern. Reinhardt's own attempts at film direction starting with "Sumuran" in 1910 were failures. Reinhardt simply did not understand the new medium and merely shot his films with static cameras as if they were simply plays. This sort of approach had already gone out of style in America and France by this time and audiences in Germany, who were by then used to foreign films were bored by such a dull, out-of-touch approach. However some of his younger actors and directors learned these lessons and soldiered on.
The first to successfully make his mark was Paul Wegener with his 1913 film "The Student Of Prague". Wegener was one of Reinhardt's stage actors who had been considering the possibilities of film as dramatic medium capable of portrayal of fantasy after seeing an exhibition of trick photographs featuring a man fencing and playing cards with himself. Clearly the stage would not be up to such effects but film-makers such as George Melies and Segundo De Chomon had already shown how film could be used to create an unreal fantasy world. Melies and other fantasy film-makers were content to engage in childlike magic, however Wegener's aim was to use fantasy to explore expressionist themes of psychological horror. Working with a script written by Hanns Heinz Ewers, a novelist of Gothic horror already known for the novel "Alarune", they came up with a story about a young man selling his soul and revealing his inner demon. The story was based on the iconic (especially in Germany) story of Faust and the Devil along with Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde", Oscar Wilde's "Dorian Gray", Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson", Joseph Conrad's "Secret Sharer" Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Double" and a touch of Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Two other novels now forgotten but popular in Victorian times and thus possibly known to the writers might have been the trashy English Gothic potboilers "The Monk" by Mathew Lewis and "Memoth The Wanderer" by the Irish writer Charles Robert Maturin about characters selling their souls.



Wegener brought in director Stellan Rye and one of Germany's best cameramen Guido Seeber along with some other Reinhardt actors including John Gottowt and Lyda Salmonova, who would also be one of Wegener's many wives. The resulting film caused a sensation not only in Germany but also internationally becoming the first German film to do so aside from 1912 "Night And Ice", a well done but conventional docudrama about the Titanic sinking. With it's dark themes of obsession, guilt, greed, lust, betrayal and death the film exposed the hidden tormented soul behind the sober, conformist, respectable German bourgeois in the false dawn before the nightmare of The Great War and became the catalyst for the growth of German Expressionist film after the war.

"THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE" ~ 1913;


CAST;
Paul Wegener ~ Balduin, The Student
John Gottowt ~ Prof. Scapinelli, The Magician
Grete Berger ~ Countess Margit Von Schwarzenberg
Lyda Salmonova ~ Lyduschka, The Servant Girl
Lothar Korner ~ Count Von Schwarzenberg
Fritz Weidermann ~ Baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg
Directed by Stellan Rye
PLOT SYNOPSIS (SPOILER ALERT!);
In 1821 Prague Balduin is a young university student of limited means. He is socially ambitious but rather decadent, preferring to drink, dance and gamble. He is also a champion fencer. Lyduschka is a pretty and flirtatious servant girl at the pub he frequents. She longs for Balduin but he is hoping to find a rich wife. Scapinelli is a magician who makes a deal to find Balduin a likely target. Countess Margit is a wealthy heiress who is already engaged to her cousin Baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg as per her father's wishes although she does not love him. As the Countess and the Baron go off on fox hunt she rides off on her own and falls into a lake where she is rescued by Balduin who has been walking by with Scapinelli. Balduin returns to his small apartment to change and practice fencing where he is met by Lyduschka who gives him a bunch of flowers and flirts with him only to have him ignore her and take the flowers to give to the Countess whose estate he visits. She is there with her father the Count. She is happy to see Balduin but then Baron Waldis shows up with a much larger bouquet of flowers. The Baron is rude to Balduin and the Count quickly ushers him out. A dejected Balduin sheepishly returns home, still with his pathetic bunch of flowers. Scapinelli visits him and makes a proposal; he will pay Balduin one-hundred thousand pieces of gold in exchange for which Scapinelli may take any one item he wants from the room. As Balduin has nothing of value he readily agrees and signs a contract. Scapinelli gestures to a large full-length mirror Balduin uses for fencing practice and states that he will purchase Balduin's reflection. Balduin is dismissive until much to his shock his reflection does indeed step out of the mirror and walk slowly and silently towards the door before simply vanishing. Scapinelli laughs before exiting as well. Balduin is even more shocked to discover that he no longer has a refection in the mirror, although at the time he is inclined to laugh it off and enjoy his new found wealth.
The newly respectable Balduin is invited to a fancy ball where he pursues Countess Margit. He passes her a note asking her to meet him later even though she is to be married. Baron Waldis shows up and angrily pulls her away. Lyduschka has been spying on Balduin and witnesses this. As Balduin leaves he runs into his Doppelganger who mocks him before once again vanishing. Balduin is frightened at first but assumes he has been having a hallucination and laughs it off. Lyduschka has followed Countess Margit home and found the note Balduin gave Margit, she steals it and runs off. Balduin and Margit are having their tryst in a cemetery when the Doppelganger shows up and scares her away before disappearing. Balduin is now frightened.
Lyduschka goes to Baron Waldris' house and gives him the tryst note from Balduin to Margit. Waldris is outraged. He dismissively offers to pay her for the note but she indignantly refuses any money and gives him the note anyway before marching out. Baron Waldris calls on Balduin and challenges him to a duel which Balduin accepts. Count Von Schwarzenberg begs Waldris to call off the duel since Balduin is the finest fencer in Prague but Waldris arrogantly refuses. The Count then calls on Balduin and begs him to spare Waldris as he is the superior fencer and Waldris is both his proposed son-in-law and heir. Reluctantly Balduin agrees. Passing through a forest on his way to the duel Balduin is met by his Doppelganger who tells him he has already fought the duel and killed Waldris. The horrified Balduin runs to the spot of the duel where a crowd is gathering around the body of Waldris. He then rides to speak to the Count who refuses to see him. Balduin tries to forget his troubles by going to a fancy party and drinking alone. Lyduschka is at the party and flirts with him but he rejects her and leaves. Balduin attends a high-stakes card game where he wins until the other players quit and he is left alone. The Doppelganger then enters and sits down and invites Balduin to play him. The terrified Balduin runs away and tries to visit Margit, climbing over the fence of her estate. He climbs a latter into her room where he begs her forgiveness, crying in her lap. She is at first resistant but then relents. They kiss but when they parade together in front of a full length mirror and she discovers he has no reflection she is frightened. Before the distraught Balduin can explain the Doppelganger appears and Margit faints. The terrified Balduin flees out the window.
Balduin attempts to run away but at every turn he finds the Doppelganger impassively waiting for him. Eventually he flags down a coach and flees the city. When he exits the coach he discovers the coachman is in fact the Doppelganger. Balduin runs home, bars the door and arms himself with a dueling pistol. In his room Balduin sits at his desk to write a note (or confession?) when the Doppelganger appears. Balduin shoots him only to have the Doppelganger vanish. Balduin searches the room and finding no sign of his tormentor decides he is dead, especially when he grabs a mirror and discovers his reflection has returned to where it belongs. Balduin is overjoyed until he feels a pain in his chest. Checking it he discovers a bullet hole and crumples to the floor dead. Scapinelli enters the room and seeing Balduin's body takes the contract he had signed from his pocket and laughingly tears it up. Then he gives an elaborate bow before vanishing. Finis.

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The Gothic literary references in this clever story are obvious but ingenious. The "Faust" influence is overt, especially to a German audience, as when Balduin sold his reflection he was actually selling his soul and Scapinelli is obviously the Devil or at least one of his minions. The "Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde" influence is shown as the Doppelganger also reflects (so to speak) Balduin's dark side. The issue of a doppelganger had also been raised in Poes' "William Wilson", Dostoyevsky's "The Double" and Conrad's "Secret Sharer". As the reflection is destroyed Balduin also dies as had Dorian Gray with his portrait. That the soulless Balduin has no reflection is a convention taken from "Dracula". There is a notable difference though in that when Balduin makes his deal with the Devil he does not know who he is dealing with nor does he know he is selling his soul. By comparison Faust, Dr Jekyll, Dorian Gray and even Dracula knew exactly what deals they were making and made them anyway thinking they could handle the consequences. Balduin does not understand what he has sold until it is far too late. This changes the moral dynamic of the fable. Those characters had free-will and chose unwisely because of pride and ambition (Faust), intellectual arrogance (Jekyll), vanity (Dorian Gray) or the promise of immortality and power (Dracula). Balduin is certainly a selfish social climber but since he did not make even a somewhat informed choice he was in effect denied free will which makes him more of a victim than the others. There is no way of knowing if the film-makers Wegener and Ewers considered the ramifications of this change or not when they wrote the script. Were they dismissing or making a mockery of the very idea of free will as Sophocles had done in "Oedipus Rex"? Or did they not notice this at all?



A common theme that would later run through Expressionist film as identified by such influential critics as Fredrich Krakauer (in his landmark book "From Caligari To Hitler") and Lotte Eisner (the equally important "The Haunted Screen") is seen here in the manipulative figures who lead characters astray or control their minds. Characters such as Scapinelli, Dr Caligari, Dr Mabuse, Nosferatu, Lulu ("Pandora's Box"), Lola Lola ("Blue Angel") the mad scientists and magicians in "Der Golem", "Metropolis", "Aralune", "Homonculus", "Genuine" and "Warning Shadows" not to mention the film versions of "Faust" and "The Pied Piper" all show this was a real trend. Krackuer and Eisner saw this as a reflection of the innate German need to follow a strong leader that would later lead to Hitler. It's worth pointing out here that Hanns Heinz Ewers, who wrote the main script (as well as the novel "Alarune" which featured a beautiful, artificially created young (Briget Helm) was also made into a movie twice), would later become an enthusiastic Nazi including writing scripts for Nazi propaganda films and plays including one glorifying the notorious Storm Trooper Horst Wessel.
In fact the film is notable for it's time in having no really sympathetic characters at all. Let alone a hero. Balduin may be a victim but he is also a decadent wastrel, an utterly shameless social climber who makes it clear that he is after the Countess for her money and social position even though the Countess is not even especially attractive compared to the younger, prettier and more flirtatious Lyduschka. The servant girl actually really does love him although it's hard to see why since he consistently ignores her. She is not even motivated by money since when Waldris offers to pay her she indignantly refuses. That's not to forget that Lyduschka is still sneaky, possessive and vengeful as she spies on him and squeals to Waldris which she had to know would end in a duel. Waldris is an arrogant snob who is also marrying Margit for money and status even though she has openly told him she does not love him and is going through with the arranged marriage due to family loyalty which Waldris obviously has no problems with. Neither does her father who is marrying her off to a cousin she does not love to keep the title in the family. Accordingly Margit is more of a victim but she is still cheating on her fiance and quickly forgives Balduin for killing him, although under the circumstances we can probably give her a pass on some of that. Balduin is not a villain as he is not without conscience since he does agree to call off the duel (or at least not kill Waldris) and feels some guilt over his death. Or is that just fear? We don't really know. And Scapinelli is of course the Devil. So that leaves us with no heroes, a strange position for a film of the time but one German intellectuals at least found revelatory. Or liberating.

BALDUIN CONFRONTED BY HIS DOUBLE;


As for the actual film-making, it is pretty conventional and shows little of the innovative camera work or set design that would become the trademarks of Expressionist film after 1919. The direction is perfectly competent and efficient and moves at a quick pace, however there are even some archaic touches such when characters gesture towards the camera as if on stage, by 1913 the Scandinavians and American directors like DW Griffith were discouraging this sort of thing, although it was still common in French films. The rather clunky need to formally introduce each character was also on it's way out although still common in Italian and Russian films. There are some Expressionist touches in the filming however such as in the gambling scene which is shown surrounded by darkness, and the placing of Balduin in settings were he is dwarfed by architecture as the story progresses in contrast with the beginning where he is shown in sunshine and in settings where he seems more imposing. One later trademark of Expressionist film was it's use of elaborately constructed indoor sets which allowed film-makers to control every aspect of design and lighting as well to the extent of sometimes creating fantasy worlds as in "Caligari" and "Metropolis". Wegener would later pioneer this approach with his second version of "Der Golem" (1920) but in 1913 he was still working with natural settings as the Scandinavians had done. Wegener had in fact chosen Prague as a setting for both films because he felt the city's old quarter would be have suitable atmosphere, especially for a scene in a Jewish graveyard with some large primal looking tombstones. While Wegener was giving some thought to setting a proper atmosphere he was not yet taking control of his environments yet to set the mood. Ironically the Rabbis denied permission to film in the graveyard so he had to build a fake one. By the time he was making the second version of "Der Golem" he was building an entire town as a set. The double exposures where Balduin is confronted by the Doppelganger were not really a new process but they are well done and must have impressed audiences at the time. Such trick shots would also become a standard feature in German films.
Wegener would normally be an odd choice for the role of the student, he is a stocky, even bulky man, with heavy features and although he is actually more physically gracefull than he appears as when he fences, scurries up and down ladders and scampers over a high fence with evident ease, he is still clearly too old to be a student. One suspects that if he had not been in charge of the project he would not have been cast in the lead role. Still he was a thoughtful actor who had given much consideration to the new medium (he would also give lectures on the subject of film acting) and he is a confident presence who can display some subtlety. This is important since he is able to convey the two distinct but identical characters successfully even though he would have actually be acting to a blank wall at the time. His skill compares well to the actress playing the Countess who is still bound by the conventions of the stage. By contrast Lyda Salmonova as Lyduschka, is pretty, lively and flirtatious and comfortable on film. The most impressive performance is John Gottowt as Scapinelli, he gets the best costume; dressed in a frock coat, top hat, drape pants and spats with a bald vulture head. He minces with birdlike movements and perches on Balduin's desk like a vulture. If he were more chubby he could be the model for the Batman villain The Penguin. His appearance and style would be shown again in the 1919 film "The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari" (although the actor himself was not) as both Werner Krause's title character as well as the sneering clerk perched on his impossibly high desk. Gottowt would become an excellent character actor and would play another similar looking devious old man in "Genuine" as well as the Renfield character in "Nosferatu" and yet another creepy old clerk in "Waxworks".

BALDUIN MEETS SCAPINELLI;


Paul Wegener would become one of the founders of Expressionist Horror following up the next year with the influential "Der Golem" (now unfortunately lost aside from the last few scenes) which he would remake (as both actor and director) in 1920 as one of the most important horror films of all time. He would also fire off a critically acclaimed version of "The Pied Piper Of Hamlin" which has also been lost, and a version of Hanns Ewers mad scientist novel "Alarune" in 1928 among many other film credits. He would cast his then wife Lyda Salmonova as the female lead in both versions of "Der Golem" and "The Pied Piper" although they would later divorce and he would marry six times, once to Greta Schroder from "Nosferatu". He had a short career in Hollywood playing mad scientists before returning home when sound films came in. After that the rather rotund actor's days as a leading man were clearly over but he continued to act as a supporting player into the sound era even after the Nazi's took over. Unlike many other Expressionist artists and film-makers he did not flee Germany and continued to work including in some notorious propaganda films, including "Kolberg", generally seen as one of the most expensive disasters in film history. Unlike Hanns Ewers, Wegener was no Nazi though, (he had of course already used a Jewish story and characters with respect in "Der Golem") he reportedly gave money and some assistance to the underground although how much is impossible to know. He managed to avoid being swept up by the Gestapo purges after 1944 so they obviously did not see him as a real threat although his celebrity may have given him some protection. At any rate the post war West German government had no problems with him and he continued to play an elder statesman role in German film and stage including reviving a Jewish play in Berlin and doing charitable work until his death after having a heart attack on stage while acting in a play. He died two months later in 1948 aged 78.
Besides the movies Lyda Salmonova, a former stage actress and dancer originally from Czechoslovakia, made with Wegener she also appeared in a now lost if minor FW Murnau horror movie "The Hunchback & The Lady" with Werner Krause (of "The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari" and the 1926 "Student Of Prague" remake) and John Gottowt. She also appeared in some big budget historical epics like Lucrezia Borgia (1922) (starring Wegener and Conrad Veidt) and "The Loves Of The Pharaoh" (directed by Ernst Lubicsh and starring Emil Jannings)as well as in "The Pied Piper Og Hamlin" with Wegener. However she and Wegener divorced in 1924 and she retired to become an acting teacher. After the war she returned to Czechoslovakia and died in 1968.
John Gottowt's fate was considerably darker. He did appear in a few other important films horror including as the Renfield character in FW Murnau's iconic "Nosferatu" along with Robert Weine's "Genuine" and Paul Leni's "Waxworks" as well as Murnau's "The Hunchback & The Lady". However the rise of the Nazis led to his fleeing Germany as he was Jewish. He fled first to Denmark but then to Warsaw (which had a thriving Yiddish theatre and film community) which turned out to provide little shelter after the Nazi tanks rolled in. He was murdered in 1942 by the Nazis.

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THE 1926 REMAKE;



In the aftermath of World War One German film developed (to coin a phrase) with surprising speed, taking up the themes explored by Wegener's early films. He had followed up "The Student Of Prague" with other supernatural stories "The Pied Piper Of Hamlin", "The Yogi" and "The Golem" (1917). Unfortunately none of these films survive aside from a few stills and the last few minutes of "The Golem" which surfaced a few years ago. These films would inspire even darker films with more imaginative direction, lighting, and set design starting with Robert Wiene's "Cabinet Of Dr Caligari" in 1919 and his followups "Genuine" and "Rashkoliov" (AKA "Crime And Punishment"), FW Murnau's "Nosferatu" (1920) and Wegener's own remake of "The Golem" in 1920. These films would establish the Expressionist template; harsh contrasts in lighting and jagged editing to set a world of dreams and nightmares, elaborate and often fantastic sets, deeply emotional and sometimes stylized acting and story-lines that probed the darkness of the human psyche with themes of alienation, fear and guilt. It was inevitable that the film that effectively started the genre would be remade using proper expressionist techniques although it's a little surprising that Wegener himself didn't do it. Perhaps by 1926 the now 52 year old no longer had the clout to helm his own projects, he was certainly too old to play Balduin.
The film would be directed by Henrik Galeen who had previously worked with Wegener on as writer on "The Golem" and with Murnau on "Nosferatu". In the cast would be two iconic figures of Expressionist Horror, Conrad Veidt as Balduin and Werner Krause as Scapinelli. Veidt had played Cesare the Sleepwalker in "The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari" as well as Orlock in "The Hands Of Orlock", Ivan The Terrible in "Waxworks" and numerous other films. Krause had also been in "Caligari", as the title role and later in "Waxworks" as Jack The Ripper. The film would show that they had fully absorbed the lessons of expressionism in full flower.

"THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE" (1926);


CAST;
Conrad Veidt ~ Balduin
Werner Krause ~ Scapinelli
Elizza La Porta ~ Lyduschka, A Flower Girl
Agnes Esterhazy ~ Countess Margit Von Schwarzenberg
Fritz Alberti ~ Count Von Schwarzenberg
Ferdinand Von Alten ~ Baron Waldis
Leni Reiefenstahl ~ Unknown
Host Wessel ~ Unknown

Directed By Henrik Galeen

PLOT SYNOPSIS (SPOILER ALERT!);
The basic story in the changes little from the first film however the later film is twice as long as the first which gives Galeen more time to flesh out the story and characters. The story opens with foreboding with a shot of a tombstone in a Jewish cemetery with the epitaph "Here lies Balduin; He challenged the devil and lost. Since the German audience was already quite familiar with the story from the first film this would not have seen as a spoiler. There is a longer sequence introducing Balduin as student, drinking and fencing with his happy-go-lucky mates at a pub. Balduin himself is a dour, somber loner worried about his poor prospects. Lyduschka is once again carrying a torch for Balduin. After he rudely snubs her she publicly responds him with a song mocking his lack of money. Scapinelli is at the same pub and witnesses this. He offers Balduin a loan by Balduin brushes him of saying he needs a wealthy heiress to wed. Scapinelli vows to find him one. Balduin fences with a fellow student who had been laughing at him and wins
Meanwhile Countess Margit is shown at a fancy party and heading off with Baron Waldis on a fox hunt. As they ride Scapinelli watches from a hill top. He appears to command the fox to lead the riders through obstacles which cause Margit to fall from her horse in front of Balduin who runs to her rescue. She is smitten by him and gives him her cross pendant which had been knocked off. Baron Waldis rides up and fetches her. Balduin returns home a practices his fencing before storming out just Lyduschka has come to visit giving him a flower. He takes them and walks off. She sneaks into his room and begins cleaning up and polishing his boots. Balduin has gone to visit Countess Margit and her father the count. She is happy to see him and he is about to give her his solitary flower when Waldis shows up with a large bouquet to be welcomed by the Count. Balduin sheepishly shoves his own flower in his pocket and leaves. He arrives home in a bad mood to find Lyduschka still there. She tries to comfort him but he rebuffs her. She leaves dejected after she finds the flower he gave her tossed in the gutter. Scapinelli enters and makes the offer of 600,000 florins in exchange for anything he wishes from the room. Balduin laughingly agrees and signs the contract. When Balduin demands the money Scapinelli produces a small purse from which a seemingly endless rain of coins falls on the table. Balduin is shocked but accepts the money. Scapinelli then gestures to the full length mirror and invites Balduin's reflection to step out of the mirror which it slowly does.
A now wealthy Balduin is hosting a party at his lavish new house. While dressing he discovers he has no reflection in the mirror. He orders a massive bouquet of flowers and sends it to Countess Margit with and invite to his party which she accepts. Balduin enters the party while Margit is playing the piano, he gives her a flower. Baron Waldis is also in attendance, he angrily grabs the flower from Margit and crumples it. She storms off. Standing on a balcony she discovers a note from Balduin asking her to meet him and she agrees. Lyduschka sneaks into the party and witnesses this. Scapinelli also creeps in, in shadow form, and seizes the note without Balduin or Margit noticing and tosses it to Lyduschka who runs off. After Margit returns to the party and Balduin is left alone he is confronted with his Doppelganger who slowly stalks off with out speaking to the horrified Balduin. Margit and Balduin have a clandestine meeting in a cemetery during which he begs her not to marry Waldis and pledges his love. While they are embracing the Doppelganger arrives frightening Balduin but not Margit who does not see him. Lyduschka confronts Waldis and gives him the note from Baldin to Margit. Waldis angrily rides off to find Balduin and strikes him his sword. Balduin challenges him to a duel which Waldis accepts. Count Von Schwarzenberg implores Waldis to cancel the duel as Balduin is the finest fencer in Prague. Waldis refuses but allows Count Von Schwarzenberg to intercede with Balduin who he begs to spare Waldis. Balduin reluctantly agrees. Margit finds out about the deal but is assured Balduin will spare Waldis. At the duel site Balduin is late because his carriage has lost a wheel in a ditch so he sets off on foot. He meets his Doppelganger who informs him that the duel has taken place and Waldis is dead. Balduin is terrified and runs to the scene to find a crowd around Waldis' dead body. A depressed Balduin returns to see the Count and Countess but they refuse to see him. Balduin goes to a pub and drinks heavily while Lyduschka watches. He grabs and kisses her and becomes more rowdy throwing items around the pub and encouraging the other patrons to further debauchery finally trashing the pub. As the revels get out of hand Balduin becomes upset and leaves. The next day he is expelled from university. Balduin is winning money gambling with is friends when the news of his expulsion arrives and they all walk out. A dejected Balduin returns to his home and climbs into bed. Lyduschka enters and climbs into bed with him. At first he allows her to embrace him but when she asks him for Margit's cross pendant which he is still wearing he throws her out. Balduin leaves and wanders out in a stormy night to visit Margit. He tells her about his Doppelganger and shows her his lack of reflection. She is horrified and faints. The Doppelganger appears and confronts Balduin who runs away. The Doppelganger follows as Balduin first attempts to kill him with a club the Doppelganger simply vanishes. Balduin runs home through the storm but at every turn the Doppelganger is waiting for him. When Balduin gets home he locks himself in and arms himself with a dueling pistol. The Doppelganger appears and dares Balduin to shoot him which he does. The Doppelganger disappears while a full length mirror he had been standing in front of shatters. Balduin looks in the remaining shards of the mirror and discovers his reflection has returned. He is overjoyed but then feels a pain in his chest and finds a bullet hole. He collapses and dies. The film cuts to the opening shot of Balduin's tombstone again.
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By the time of the remake's filming in 1926 Expressionism was an established style with a visual language of it's own some which is used here to good effect. The entire final section where Balduin staggers and later flees through a raging storm past barren trees is almost perfectly Expressionist. Likewise the scene of Balduin crouching to see and finally caressing the reflection in the broken mirror and the final appearance of the Doppelganger in front of a now broken window pane with billowing curtains. There is also the scene where Scapinelli takes control of the fox hunt. He is shown on a hill-top silhouetted against a stormy sky with a twisted tree stump wearing a frock coat and top hat and umbrella looking distinctly demonic. In fact this version makes Scapinelli's demonic nature more explicit in this scene where he appears to have power over the fox and hounds as well as the elements. In the first film Margit simply falls off her horse into a pond but it is not made clear that any magic was involved. Similarly when Scapinelli dumps his endless shower of coins from his purse it should be obvious that this is magic since no small purse could possibly hold so many coins. Balduin seems to notice this but is overcome by greed as his only comment is; "Is that all for me?". On the other hand Galeen passes up two obvious chances for supernatural horror from the first film. One is when the Doppelganger steps out of the mirror for the first time. In the Wegener film the double strides around the room before the shocked Balduin before disappearing while in the second the scene simply ends as soon as he steps out. A bigger omission is the scene in the first film where the Doppelganger appears at the poker game to challenge Balduin to a game. Since a similar scene had also turned up in Fritz Lang's "Dr Mabuse, The Gambler" Galeen may have decided the audience would see it as derivative but it's still a glaring loss.

SCAPINELLI STALKS THE HUNT;


Notwithstanding any such minor reservations Galeen does a good job here and there are some good Expressionist effects using a moving camera following Balduin as he flees down the desolate road (that shot should have really gone on longer), a spinning camera during Balduin's drunken revels at the pub to show his disorientation and a later brilliant shot directly after where a shot of wildly sawing blade is superimposed over his head. The film also makes use of another expressionist standard, the symbolism of inanimate objects, Scapinelli's umbrella is a stand-in for a magic wand, the flowers which are given, refused and finally discarded, and of course Balduin's sword which allows for a clearly sensual subtext when Lyduschka caresses it lovingly while cleaning his room. The art direction was by Hermann Warm who had worked on the iconic Expressionist film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", Fritz Lang's 1921 film "Destiny" and later the 1931 Danish horror classic "Vampyr".

SCAPINELLI'S SHADOW STALKS BALDUIN;


The biggest change from the first film is really the acting however. Paul Wegener was solid enough but by 1926 Conrad Veidt was one of the finest actors in Germany if not the world. His sensitive portrayals of tortured souls like Cesare (from "Dr Caligari"), Orlock ("Orlack's Hands"), Ivan The Terrible ("Waxworks") and numerous others helped set the standard for the doomed expressionist hero. He wears his emotions on his sleeve; guilt, terror, dejection, frightened relief, desperation all come off him in waves. His face, with his oddly high domed forehead, wild shock of hair, enormous eyes and nervous shark-like grin is is highly expressive and the opposite of Wegener's impassive glower. He also has great physical grace as he had already displayed in his earlier films. When he is terrified or dejected it seems to rock or drag down his entire body. Such emotional physicality had become a standard motif of Expressionist film as seen in scenes where Balduin kneels in front of Margit begging forgiveness and placing his head in her lap while she caresses his hair, a common image in German film of the era. Veidt's wonderfully expressive face is shown to full effect (as for that matter are Werner Krause, Elizza La Porta and Grete Berger) by the films use of closeups, something lacking in the first film.

CONRAD VEIDT;


Werner Krauss as Scapinelli was the other well known star here having appeared as Dr Caligari as well as Jack The Ripper in "Waxworks". He is suitably menacing here but does not have the hunched, crab-like posture of Dr Caligari. He is actually more naturalistic than the lesser known John Gottowt from the earlier film both in his manner and his wardrobe. Eliza La Porta as Lyduschka actually looks like Lyda Salmonova from the first film and behaves in much the same flirtatious way although she is more given more to do here and her obsession with Balduin is made more explicit. Similarly Agnes Esterhazy is given slightly more to do than Grete Berger as Margit. She is also younger and more attractive although I'm not sure that is an improvement since Balduin's attraction to her as opposed to the prettier Lyduschka is clearly due to her having money and social status.

A note that two other actors reportedly appear in minor roles, perhaps little more than extras, who would later go on to greater fame or infamy. Leni Reiefenstahl, later the documentary director of Nazi propaganda films "The Triumph Of The Will" and "Olympia" was at this point an ambitious and strikingly attractive up-and-coming actress who had already appeared as little more than a model of physical perfection in one other movie documentary, with her first starring role later that year, she is presumably one of the women at one of the parties. Horst Wessel was at this point a university student and member of various far-right groups, while he was not an actor he was an amateur musician and poet who was also a member of fencing and boxing clubs and could be one of the group of rowdy students or musicians. In another year he would join the Nazi party's Brownshirts and take part in their street brawls until 1930 when he would be murdered in one of them. A song he wrote for the Brownshirts would then become their anthem as "The Horst Wessel Song".

BALDUIN MEETS HIS DOUBLE;


An additional note here is that while both films have clearly Jewish characters they are in no way anti-Semitic. In fact it's worth pointing out that while Balduin, and presumably the other main characters, are not only Jews but respectable members of the lower aristocracy and no different than any proper German junkers. Lest this be seen today as odd coming from a German film of the era it should be noted as well that Wegener also dealt with even more explicitly Jewish characters and settings in "Der Golem" (where the Imperial Austrians are the actually the villains) and Veidt would do the same in the 1936 British version of "Jud Suss" (as opposed to the hateful 1940 Nazi version) and he would also play sympathetic gay characters in a few films. Veidt's wife was also Jewish as was one of Wegener's six wives wives That Weimar culture could allow for such openness while Hollywood was still trading in racist stereotypes of all sorts is worth remembering.
Conrad Veidt would continue to make successful films in Germany until he was lured away by German director Paul Leni when he moved to Hollywood. Leni cast Veidt in the Gothic horror film "The Man Who Laughs" in 1928 and when Leni was given the job of bringing Dracula to the screen he immediately saw Veidt in the title role. Unfortunately Leni died suddenly in 1929 and with his patron and fellow countryman dead, Veidt, speaking little English and worried about typecasting dropped out and returned to Germany. After much searching the role of course went to Bela Lugosi leaving us to wonder what kind of brooding intensity Veidt might have brought to the role. In Germany he continued his career until the Nazis took power in 1933 and Veidt, whose wife was Jewish, fled back to Hollywood. He learned English and returned to the screen in films like "Jud Suss" and "Under The Robe" (as Cardinal Richelieu) before scoring the most famous sound roles as evil Nazis including the major in "Casablanca". His career seemed assured when he suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack while playing golf in 1943. He was only 50 years old.
Director Henrik Galeen would finally work with Paul Wegener in "Aralune" (1928) another horror film about a mad scientist creating artificial life also starring Brigitte Helm of "Metropolis" fame. However he as also a Jew and like Gottowt had to flee Germany after the Nazi takeover. He fled first to Sweden, then Britain before finally landing in Hollywood but did nothing of note before dying in 1949.
Werner Krauss would have very different career, and one far less honorable. Unlike Veidt and other German film-makers and actors such as Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Lang, Paul Weine, Douglas Sirk, Briggitte Helm, Asta Neilson and Hans Richter, he stayed in Germany after Hitler came to power. Also unlike some who also stayed, like Paul Wegener, Krauss became an avowed Nazi. Thus he had no problem finding work during the Hitler years. In fact he was named as Reichskulturkammer theatre department and a "Cultural Ambassador" for Nazi Germany. However none of the many movies the Nazis made were of much note and it mostly as the iconic Dr Caligari he is remembered today. After the war he spent some years in disgrace due to his Nazi past but was eventually considered rehabilitated enough to rejoin the German film community, more as a respected figure of the past than as a real creative force. He died in 1959.

BALDUIN TRIES TO FLEE THROUGH A TYPICAL EXPRESSIONIST URBAN SET;


"The Student Of Prague" would get a German sound remake in 1935 directed by Arthur Robison and starring Anton Walbrook.

The Rivals Of Twilight Zone

"Twilight Zone" (1959 - 1964) is acknowledged as being one of the greatest TV shows of all time. A perfect masterpiece of writing, acting and direction that brought a sophisticated mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery, irony and social commentary to prime-time television that was not only critically acclaimed but successful as well. It actually made a celebrity out of a lowly writer, Rod Serling, who managed to make screenwriters look cool. It also had one of the most iconic theme songs of all time. Even people who have never actually seen the show instantly recognize the song.

1980's "TWILIGHT ZONE" THEME BY THE GRATEFUL DEAD;


One of the strong points of "Twilight Zone" was it's variety. Some episodes were serious sci-fi/fanatsy stories while others might range from somber fables to eerie supernatural mysteries to odd ironic comedies with twist endings. Then there are those impossible to categorize episodes like the one where Ann Francis wanders through a department store trying to recall how she got there only to discover that she is in fact a manikin. Or the one where a group of oddly matched people struggle to escape from a cell only to have it revealed that they are actually a group of dolls locked in a child's toybox.



"Twilight Zone" was the brainchild of Rod Serling, a respected and award winning screen-writer who had worked in several different genres before deciding that Sci-Fi/Fantasy with a twist ending would be an effective way of telling stories that would have a larger social message. There had been such a tradition in Sci-Fi/Fantasy since the days of Jules Verne, HG Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mary Shelly and in early horror films such as "The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari", "Metropolis", "Der Golem" and "King Kong". However by the 1950's much of this school of serious Sci-Fi had largely gone out of style and been replaced by Gothic horror (numerous Dracula, Wolfman and Mummy remakes by Hammer Films) or more cartoonish Sci-Fi aimed at kids and teens such as "Buck Rogers", "Flash Gordon" and various superheros. There were some notable exceptions like "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and some HG Wells adaptations like "The Time Machine" and "Things To Come" but for a respected writer like Serling to turn to the genre was a bit of a gamble. Serling would originally be the writer for the series but he would soon assemble a stable of talented writers who he would oversee as producer. Originally seen as a serious si-fi/fantasy/supernatural/mystery anthology, Serling would soon add some ironic comedy touches in the vein of O.Henry. The high quality of the scripts would soon attract an impressive collection of excellent actors to the show (some more than once) including the likes of;
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, George Takei (all in "Star Trek" of course), Burgess Merideth, Robert Duvall, Anne Francis ("Honey West"), Inger Stevens ("Farmer's Daughter" & "Hang Em High"), Marlon Brando, Burt Reynolds, Robert Redford, Mickey Rooney, Claude Akins ("Inherit The Wind", "The Killers"), Patrick McNee ("The Avengers"), Charles Bronson, Jack Klugman, Lee Marvin, Mary Badham ("To Kill A Mockingbird"), Ian Wolfe ("Witness For The Prosecution" and "WKRP"), Telly Savalas ("Kojack"), James Coburn, Richard Deacon ("Dick Van Dyke Show"), Buddy Ebsen, Joan Blondell, Martin Landau, Jackie Cooper ("Superman"), Micheal Constantine, Joseph Schildkraut, Mariette Hartley, Elizabeth Montgomery ("Bewitched"), Keenan Wynn, Ed Wynn, Bill Bixby ("The Hulk"), Wally Cox ("Mr Peepers"), Janice Rule ("Matt Helm; The Ambushers"), Don Gordon ("Bullit"), Arline Sax ("Star Trek"), Susan Oliver ("Star Trek"), Diana Hyland ("Eight Is Enough"), Cedric Hardwicke, Warren Oates, Patrick O'Neal, Dennis Hopper, Rod Taylor ("The Time Machine"), Morgan Britanny ("Dallas"), Nehemiah Persoff, Fritz Weaver, Vera Miles, Martin Milner ("Sunset Strip" & "Adam-12"), Ida Lupino, Martin Balsam, Simon Oakland ("The Night Stalker"), Tim O'Connor ("Buck Rogers"), Jack Warden, Jack Weston, Gig Young, James Best ("Dukes Of Hazard"), George Grizzard, Howard Duff, Roddy McDowell, Albert Salmi, Russell Johnson ("Gilligan's Island"), Ivan Dixon ("Hogan's Heros"), Dana Andrews, Jack Albertson ("Chico & The Man"), Ann Jillian, Pat Hingle, James Whitmore, Jack Weston, Dean Stockwell, Richard Kiel ("Moonraker" and "Eegah"), David McCallum ("Men From Uncle") Billy Mumy, Shelly Berman, Murray Hamilton ("Jaws"), Jean March ("Willow"), Warren Oates, Dick York ("I dream Of Genie"), Jonathan Winters, Jim Hutton and David Wayne (both in "Ellery Queen"), Sebastian Cabot, Ernest Truex ("His Girl Friday" and a former silent film actor with a resume going back to 1913) and Estelle Winwood (who had a career going back even further and would continue acting past her hundredth birthday). Some of these were well known names even then, including several past and future Oscar winners and nominees. And yet the biggest star of the show would surprisingly turn out to be Serling himself as host who would introduce each episode with a trademark droll half grimace/half smirk and ever present cloud of cigarette smoke. For the first few shows his intros were actually done off-camera before someone figured out that Serling had the charisma to carry the show.



"Twilight Zone" is not without it's faults. It's approximately twenty-two minute length (half hour minus ads and intros & outros) meant that some scripts feel a little rushed. Rod Serling's desire to use stories to promote his deeply held political beliefs mean that some episodes can be preachy. But with the exceptionally well written and acted stories "Twilight Zone" left some classics still instantly remembered today. Poor, beautiful, doomed Inger Stevens meeting death on the highway again and again. Burgess Merideth emerging from his bank vault to discover the world has been destroyed except for his beloved books. Jack Klugman playing a game of pool beyond the grave with Jonathan Winters. William Shatner's well founded fear of flying. A frightened old lady discovering that death looks a lot like Robert Redford. Bored, cynical David Wayne becoming immortal then finding that even more boring. Young Billy Mumy sending annoying adults to the cornfield. Inger Stevens discovering she's a robot. Anne Francis discovering she's a manikin. Charles Bronson wandering the post nuclear world and discovering Elizabeth Montgomery. Shelly Berman discovering he is as annoying as he finds everybody else. The neighbours on Maple St discovering they are the real monsters. Telly Savalas pissing off the wrong child's doll. And of course; "To serve man; It's a cookbook!".

The iconic "Twilight Zone" theme would be covered in an epic version by the Ventures and later the Grateful Dead and Korn. OK; we can forget about that last one. There's also Golden Earing's 1980's hit "Twilight Zone" which has little to do with the show but is still pretty cool.

THE VENTURES ~ "TWILIGHT ZONE";


"Twilight Zone" ran from 1959 to 1964 on CBS, originally as a half hour show until season four when it was increased to an hour, presumably to compete with the one hour shows of "Outer Limits". The next season the network cut it back to a half hour in a series of network budget cuts and lineup changes that would lead to the show's cancellation the next year, along with "Outer Limits" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Serling would attempt to start again with an abortive show at ABC which didn't make it to air. Then he returned to CBS where he tried a comeback with an abortive western show which only lasted a few episodes. Still later was the fiasco of "Night Gallery" in 1970 for which he gave up creative control only to be forced out by the network who it turned out only wanted television's most honored writer to act as the droll host. That lasted until 1973. After that he gave up television and taught screenwriting at an upstate New York college. He died of heart disease brought on by his trademark chain smoking in 1975. "Twilight Zone" would return in the 1980's and again in the 2000's with episodes which sometimes were almost line-by-line copies of the originals.



But enough about "Twilight Zone", there's really nothing new to be said about the timeless show at this point. Except that while "Twilight Zone" may have been the greatest Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Mystery show it was as not alone in delivering sci-fi/fantasy/mystery anthology to prime-time television. It wasn't even the first of it's kind.

The team of classic TV fantasy/mystery/sci-fi can basically be broken down into four categories; a)The Big Three ("Twilight Zone", "Outer Limits" & "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" in that order), b)The Pioneers, shows from the first generation of TV ("Tales Of Tomorrow" & "Lights Out"), c)The Journeymen, shows that were successful enough to be of some note but clearly not as iconic as the Big Three and d)The Ringers, shows that didn't actually make it on the air at the time but somehow survived anyway ("The Veil" & "13 Demon Street").

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"THE OUTER LIMITS";


One of the most respected anthology shows was "The Outer Limits", a contemporary show which ran from 1961 to 1964 on ABC. Billed as a Science Fiction anthology with shows running a full hour as opposed to the half hour formats of the other anthology shows. The episodes had bigger budgets than the the other shows allowing for better special effects and more mobile film-work rather than some of the more studio bound shows like "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Tales From Tomorrow" or "One Step Beyond". Like "Twilight Zone" they were also able to attract a stable of notable actors, many of whom also appeared on "Twilight Zone", including;
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan (all later in "Star Trek"), Robert Culp ("I Spy"), David McCallum ("Man From Uncle"), Eddy Albert ("Green Acres"), Robert Duval, Henry Silva ("Manchurian Candidate"), Patrick O'Neal, Tim O'Rourke ("Buck Rogers"), Micheal Ansara ("Broken Arrow"), Micheal Constantine, Dabney Coleman ("War Games" and "9 to 5"), Russell Johnson ("Gilligan's Island"), Howard DaSilva, Ivan Dixon ("Hogan's Heros"), Robert Webber ("12 Angry Men"), Don Gordon, Peter Duel ("Alias Smith & Jones"), Vera Miles, Gloria Grahame, James Shigata ("Flower Drum Song" and "Die Hard"), George MacReady ("30 Days In May"), Martin Landau, Warren Oates, Sally Kellerman ("MASH"), Sam Wanamaker, Chita Rivera, Ralph Meeker ("St Valentines Day Massacre"), Edward Mulhare ("Knight Rider"), Bruce Dern, Shirley Knight, Jeff Corey, Ed Asner ("Mary Tyler Moore Show"), Cedric Hardwicke, Barbara Rush, Joyce Van Patton and Donald Pleasence (Blofeld in the James Bond movies and also "Halloween").



Naturally when you have an iconic show like "Twilight Zone" there will always be those who will insist that it's "over rated" and offer up some alternative for "best ever". For many "Outer Limits" has filled that role with none other than Stephen King saying that "Outer Limits" is better written, with better character development.
Personally I think this is a meaningless statement. First of all it's not even true. While some characters in "Outer Limits" do indeed evolve and learn from their experiences, others learn nothing, as is equally true of "Twilight Zone". More importantly this neglects the fact that "Outer Limits" was an hour long compared to "Twilight Zone's" half hour (except for season four) so it's not a fair comparison. Sometimes this hour long format can be a drawback as well. Just as some "Twilight Zone" episodes can feel a little rushed some "Outer Limits" episodes can feel a little padded out and draggy. At any rate there are some inherent weaknesses in "Outer Limits". Billed as a sci-fi show means that "Outer Limits" shows tend to be rather similar, virtually every episode is based on the same few themes; either robots, aliens, space travel or the occasional time traveler. There are few if any exceptions, and the theme is set pretty quickly so while the stories have suspense, there is no real mystery involved, and few of the quirky twist endings that are the trademark of "Twilight Zone". This contrasts with the unpredictable nature of "Twilight Zone" where the audience never knows quite what to expect at the start. Some "Twilight Zone" episodes were dark and moody, while others are eerie and strange and others are light comedies. Like much adult sci-fi "Outer Limits" also takes itself very seriously and each episode has a rather cool and somber tone, sometimes even preachy. It's true that some "Twilight Zone" episodes can also be overtly preachy but this is still within the overall much greater variety of the "Zone" as a whole. "Outer Limits" also shows less variety in it's settings with virtually all stories set in contemporary America or a vague future. By contrast "Twilight Zone" stories can range from modern times to the Victorian Era to the old west to World War Two to outer space to an alternate future. Stylistically "Outer Limits" also lacks the film noirish directorial touches that some "Twilight Zone" with most episodes naturalistic preferring brightly lit scenes and few of the odd camera angles and expressionist sets "Twilight Zone" sometimes used. The theme song also isn't nearly as cool. (Although the Ventures would later do an eerie version). Having said all that there is no doubt that "Outer Limits" was an excellent show with consistently high quality literate scripts and solid acting. The special effect aliens may now look a little cheesy but some still have a certain presence.



"Outer Limits" was cancelled in the same year as "Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" as networks decided audience tastes were changing. However the show has kept it's allure occasionally being rerun and with all it's episodes available on DVD. Only the show's one hour length kept it from being rerun as often as "Twilight Zone" or "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" even though most of the episodes now appear to be in public domain. As with "Twilight Zone" there was an "Outer Limits" remake series in the 1990's.

"THE OUTER LIMITS";


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"ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS"



The most successful of all anthologies, at least in terms of longevity, was this show which ran longer than "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits" combined. This anthology ran from 1955 to 1964 on CBS and has been available on reruns ever since. This is more due to the marquee value of the Hitchcock name rather than the excellence of the show itself which is often erratic. Alfred Hitchcock himself had little day-to-day involvement with the show, which was instead produced by Joan Harrison, one of his former assistants. He instead acted as a droll host deadpanning his way through dry comedic set-ups and codas which sometimes had little connection to the actual story. The focus of the stories was limited to crime stories with a twist ending. There was rarely, if ever, any supernatural or sci-fi element so the stories lack the unpredictable quality of "Twilight Zone" or the otherworldly quality of "Outer Limits", "Tales Of Tomorrow" or "Lights Out". The tone is rather light compared to the other shows with the focus on clever twist endings, sometimes humorous ones. The quality of the shows is maddeningly inconsistent. Some shows are quite clever and briskly done, but others are sloppy and end abruptly as if they were rushed through to the screen, something the perfectionist Rod Serling would never have allowed. Another occasional annoyance is the habit of having Hichcock close off a story by delivering a closing comment that undercuts the story you just watched by explaining that the killers actually got caught after all, usually without explanation.

The stories value cleverness rather than the mood or depth of other such shows but they are still usually enjoyable and efficiently done. The best episodes faithfully show the Hitchcock influence with sly twist endings and a dry detached wit stripped of any of the morality of "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits". In Hitchcock's world the bad guys often get away with murder and nobody ever seems to particularly care about the victim. The direction is competent but rarely showing the moody noir influences sometimes shown in "Twilight Zone" with shows having a ratio of inside to outside sets similar to "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits". Like "Twilight Zone" (and unlike "Outer Limits" or "Tales Of Tomorrow") the show showed a willingness to set episodes in other times from the Victorian to contemporary eras. The show shared many of the same actors used by the other shows mentioned here, although they usually did not get the same literate dialogue, including;
Darren McGavin, Diana Dors, Carolyn Jones ("Adams Family"), George MacReady, Brandon DeWilde ("Shane"), John Forsythe ("Dynasty"), Walter Mathau, Robert Vaughan ("Man From Uncle"), Barbara Bel Geddes, Dick York ("Bewitched"), Claude Rains ("The Invisible Man"), Laurence Harvey ("Manchurian Candidate"), Alan Napier ("Batman"), Tom Ewell, Sebastian Cabot, Micheal Ansara, Jo Van Fleet, Everett Sloane, Rip Torn, Claire Trevor, Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre (both in the same episode), Werner Kelmperer and John Banner (both later in "Hogan's Heros" and both in the same episode).

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was cancelled in the same season as "Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits" but it has survived in reruns. Like "Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits" the show was remade in the 1980's with new episodes that managed to reuse the old Hitchcock intros and codas (now colourized) on new stories some of which were rewrites of original stories. Harrison had a try with another mystery anthology called "Journey to The Unknown" in 1968 but it lasted less than a season and was in colour and outside the scope of our survey.

"ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS";


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"TALES OF TOMORROW";



"Tales Of Tomorrow" (1950 - 1952) was the first explicitly sci-fi anthology series often seen as the precursor to both "Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits". As was common with most TV shows of the early "Golden Years" it was made quickly and it looks it. Everything was shot on an indoor sound stage which often looks dark and cramped. They use obvious stage sets, some quite flimsy, and in the first year some of the painted backdrops actually have windows and bookcases that are clearly painted on. The reliance on indoor sets means that there is very little actual action seen. Any fights, chases, crashes etc happen off scene to be referred to or heard rather than seen. After season one this deficiency is made up by using stock footage, some quite old. All of this was normal in that era and TV viewers of the time would not have found this strange. The pace was a little slow but directors sometimes adapted to their limitations by using some film noir techniques with shadows and lighting. All this means that episodes can be a little slow and talky by today's standards but they do have a dark mood and atmosphere.

While the sets may have been crude the scripts were quite good. While most are of the sci-fi variety featuring aliens and robots similar to the later "Outer Limits" others had twist endings closer to "Twilight Zone" and there are a few which fall into a more fantasy category including at least one story; "What You Need" which later turned up as a "Twilight Zone" episode a decade later, virtually unchanged. There were also some adaptations of older classics by HG Wells and Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein". The tone of "Tales Of Tomorrow" was often dark and moody with some of the stories ending badly for all involved, unlike the later "Outer Limits" where the good guys usually won or the conflict was resolved. Most, if not all episodes were set in either in contemporary America or in some vague not-too-distant future.

"Tales Of Tomorrow" was one of the first shows to be able to attract some notable actors including;
Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney jr, Lee J. Cobb, Sylvia Sidney, Darren McGavin ("Kolchak, The Night Stalker"), Leslie Neilson, Brian Keith, Sam Jaffe, Eva Gabor, James Doohan, Phillip Pine (Star Trek), John Newland ("One Step Beyond"), Burgess Merideth, Joan Blondell, Victor Jory, Veronica Lake, Gene Lockhart, Everett Stone, Mercedes McCambridge ("All The King's Men"), Jackie Cooper, Jack Warden, Thomas Mitchell ("It's A Wonderful Life"), Rod Steiger and James Dean (both in the same episode no less) and a young Paul Newman and future wife Joanne Woodward (but not in the same episode).

Due to it's relatively low budgets and comparably crude production standards "Tales Of Tomorrow" hasn't been seen much on TV as reruns even though the episodes have been in the public domain for years. They are available on DVD and this ground breaking show has gotten some of the attention it deserves. Note that the show's credits were designed by Arthur Rankin, an animator who would later become one of the founders of Rankin-Bass Studios, producers of the classic Christmas toons "Frosty The Snowman" and "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" although the bare-bones graphics used here give no hint of this.

"TALES OF TOMORROW";


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"LIGHTS OUT";



"Lights Out" was the first important mystery/fantasy anthology running from 1949 to 1952. "Lights Out" actually started out as a long running radio show produced and largely written by Arch Oboler, a Rod Serling type figure who set the standard template for later anthologies; bizarre mystery and supernatural short stories that focused on mood and twist endings rather than action. The radio show also became known for having a deep voiced host introducing each show with the catchphrase; "It is later than you think!", slowly said in a loud droning voice accompanied by the sound of a loud bell tolling. The TV show was a success and moved to television after Oboler's death. The opening was changed to an eerie droning organ and stuttering piano keys as the host; the bald, pop-eyed, ghoulish Frank Gallup greeted you with a deep voiced, leering "Helloooo" before introducing tonight's episode. He would also close off the episode with a droll comment.

As with "Tales From Tomorrow", "Lights Out" was a low budget affair done on a sound stage with cheap sets. Some early shows seem to have very little set design at all, instead relying on darkened sets and harsh lighting to set a mood. Again as in "Tales From Tomorrow" there was no actual action on "Lights Out" with any such activity being referred to or heard off-stage. The stories were rather talky betraying their origins in radio drama. The focus in "Lights Out" was on the supernatural with twist endings rather than sci-fi fables. Another holdover from radio was the music, a somewhat cheesy melodramatic organ and cascading harp trills that was also common in soap operas of the era. Like most shows of that era the shows were essentially shot live and the camera work was pretty static although they occasionally experimented with a few expressionistic camera tricks and moody lighting. The tone in "Lights Out" was rather moody and somber, an atmosphere somewhat encouraged by the claustrophobic effect of the darkened, cramped sets. The endings were often downbeat. One episode, "The Angry Birds" may have influenced Hitchcock's later movie "The Birds". Another episode was based on a Sir Walter Scott story and set in Georgian Scotland allowing for the most preposterous Scottish accents this side of Groundskeeper Willie. Most stories were set in contemporary America however.

Early TV shows of the first era often had trouble attracting stars. In an example of myopic fear the Hollywood studios regarded TV as the enemy and banned it's stars from appearing on TV at all for the first few years, not even to promote their movies. With no star system of their own yet TV networks instead had to rely on actors from radio (both NBC and CBS also owned radio networks) and theatre. However a few notables did appear, some not yet famous, including;
EG Marshall, Lee J Cobb, Joseph Sweeney (all later in "12 Angry Men"), John Carradine, Beatrice Straight, Leslie Neilson, John Forsythe ("Dynasty"), John Newland ("One Step Beyond"), Arlene Francis ("Honey West"), J Pat O'Malley, Billie Burke, Eddie Albert, Raymond Massey, Yvonne DeCarlo ("The Munsters"), Jonathan Harris ("Lost In Space"), Robert Stack ("The Untouchables"), Robert Culp ("I Spy") and Henry Hull ("Werewolf Of London").
Producer Herbert B Swope jr was the son of Pulitzer Prize winning writer Herbert Swope, an editor of the "New Yourk Wold" and member of the Alqonquin Table along with the likes of F Scott Fitzgerald, Dorthy Parker and Robert Benchley.

In spite of it's importance "Lights Out" has been largely overlooked. With it's low budget look, slow pace, cheesy music, often static film work and stage-bound aura the show already looked hopelessly archaic by the late fifties (only a few years later) and it has never been in demand in reruns or on DVD although it's now in public domain and enough episodes are available to fill out a season.

"LIGHTS OUT";


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"ONE STEP BEYOND";


This series is not as well remembered but it actually ran from 1959 to 1961 and preceded "Twilight Zone" (by several months) and "Outer Limits". "One Step Beyond" (sometimes also known as "Alcoa Presents") was different from other anthologies in that it claimed to based on fact rather than a format for sci-fi or fantasy. All the stories were reportedly based on actual experiences with the supernatural. This meant that like "Outer Limits" the stories fell into predicable categories; ghosts, past lives, telekinesis, ESP, premonitions and other psychic phenomena. All presented in a sober straight-forward manner with no attempts at humour or moral message. Aside from the occasional UFO there are no robots, aliens, time travelers, toys come to life or crime stories. Because the theme of the series was the claim that all the stories were factual some of the stories were based on previously known tales such as premonitions from Abraham Lincoln and George Washington or the Titanic sinking.

The direction was similarly straight forward, lacking in the Film Noirish or Expressionistic flourishes the other shows often had. They were also lacking in memorably flashy scenes or clever dialogue. "One Step Beyond" was also shot on a more limited budget than "Twilight Zone", "Outer Limits" or "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and this shows in the reliance on indoor sets and fairly static camera work and the use of stock outdoor footage. Accordingly "One Step Beyond" did not attract any notable writers or directors although it did attract some some good (albeit some not yet famous) actors including;
Christopher Lee, Warren Beatty, Donald Pleasence, Charles Bronson, William Shatner, Patrick McNee, Joan Fontaine, Cloris Leachman ("Mary Tyler Moore Show"), Robert Blake ("Barretta"), Reginald Owen ("A Christmas Carol"), Yvette Mimieux ("The Time Machine"), Andre Morell ("Hound Of The Baskervilles"), Elizabeth Montgomery ("Bewitched"), Mike Connors ("Mannix"), Suzanne Pleshette ("Bob Newhart Show"), Jack Lord ("Hawaii 5-0"), Robert Loggia ("Scarface" and "Big"), Louise Fletcher ("One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest"), Whit Bissell ("Time Tunnel"), Werner Klemperer ("Hogan's Heros" and "Judgement In Nuremburg"), Robert Lansing, John Daly, Joe Turkel ("The Shining"), Ed Platt ("Get Smart"), James Hong, Phillip Ahn, Ronald Howard ("Sherlock Holmes"), Veronica Cartwright ("Daniel Boone", "The Birds"), Pernell Roberts ("Bonanza"), Patrick O'Neal, Norman Lloyd ("St Elsewhere"), Barbara Baxter, Irene Ryan ("Beverly Hillbillies"), Albert Salmi, Robert Webber and Ed Binns (both in "12 Angry Men").

Like "Twilight Zone", "Lights Out" and "Alfred Hichcock Presents", "One Step Beyond" had a host to introduce each episode. In this case it was John Newland, a journeyman television actor who already appeared in "Lights Out" and "Tales Of Tomorrow". Unlike the droll, mocking Serling, Gallup or Hitchcock, Newland was a rather bland, wispy actor with a pale, vacantly apprehensive face, a hesitant manner, an unblinking stare and a breathless voice who introduced each story with serious and somber air as befits the show's "exploring the real supernatural" theme. Besides hosting Newland directed many episodes and also acted in a few.

Although "One Step Beyond" lacked the distinctive style of the other series mentioned here it was a solid and consistent show done cheaply and efficiently and since it had a corporate sponsor in Alcoa it was able to stay on the air and built up a large library of episodes which could be rerun. Most of these episodes are easily available on DVD keeping the show alive where other similar shows have been lost even though the show is rarely rerun. In 1978 the show was brought back in colour with Newland again hosting but it would last only a season. In the 1980's the British ska band Madness named a classic song after the show.

"ONE STEP BEYOND";


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"THRILLER";


The failure of "The Veil" (see below) did not discourage the idea of having Boris Karloff as host for an anthology show and "Thriller" was the next result. Done by Revue Studios for MCA in 1961 to 1962 this time there would be a sufficient budget to hire writers like Robert Bloch, directors like Arthur Hiller, Paul Henreid, Ida Lupino, Ray Milland and John Newland and composers Jerry Goldsmith and Morton Stevens. Karloff would introduce each episode and act in a few as well. The stories were usually supernatural with a dark ghoulish tone, similar to a Hammer Film done on a lower budget and in black and white. And with less skin, this being television of course. Stephen King has claimed the show as "The best of it's kind up to that point". I disagree. Completely lacking in subtlety, "Thriller" lacks entirely the cleverness, variety and literate dialogue of "Twilight Zone", "Outer Limits" or "Tales Of Tomorrow". It does have suspense but not their sense of wonder either. "Thriller" also does not have the slick and occasional noirish direction of "Twilight Zone" or even "Outer Limits". The Emmy Award nominated scores by Jerry Goldsmith did add a sense of menace to the proceedings and Karloff was a fine host with his usual droll charm. The spider-web opening credits were also a nice touch. The show also scored a Hugo Award nomination in 1962.

Actors who guest starred included;
John Newland (fresh from "One Step Beyond" in a episode he also directed), Leslie Neilson, Constance Ford, George Grizzard, Everett Sloane, Mary Astor, Rip Torn, Cloris Leachman, Robert Lansing, Mary Tyler Moore, Jack Carson, Werner Klemperer, William Shatner, James Gregory, Nehemiah Persoff, Robert Vaughn, Reginald Owen, John Ireland, Edward Platt, Lloyd Bochner, Brandon De Wilde. Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, Hazel Court, Natalie Schafer ("Gilligan's Island') and comedian Mort Sahl.

In spite of it's award nominations the show only lasted two seasons although it did spawn a comic book spin-off on Gold Key Comics which lasted into the 1980's. The Pretenders incorporated a title of one episode in the lyrics of the song "Back On The Chain Gang" in 1984. Unlike most of the other shows listed here "Thriller" is not in public domain (aside from one episode which somehow slipped out), however it is available on DVD.

"THRILLER";


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"THE VEIL";


"The Veil" occupies a strange position among mystery/fantasy anthologies. It is one of the better remembered and is readily available on DVD, in spite of the fact that it's original run was aborted and the show never actually made it to air.

"The Veil" was hosted by Boris Karlof who also appeared in each episode in different roles, either as a leading role, villain or supporting player. Like "One Step Beyond" the stories were purportedly based on true cases of paranormal activity, mostly concerning premonitions, esp, ghosts and the like. The stories are presented in a straight-forward way with little real action and occasional touches of light humour, usually caused by Karloff's typically off-hand performances. In various episodes Karloff could have roles ranging from a large or a minor and in a couple episodes his character is incidental and seems tacked on. The supporting actors are mostly obscure but solid enough. Stories are set in various times from contemporary to Victorian times and range in location from America to Europe to India. Using facilities at Hal Roach Studios the show looks quite professional with detailed sets and costumes and unlike many other shows of the era the quality of existing prints is quite good. Many outdoor scenes appear to make good use of stock footage such as speeding police cars, planes in flight or location shots.

The show was done by an independent production company for syndication rather than by a network. Unfortunately after a season's worth of episodes had been filmed the company ran out of money and went out of business and the series was never picked up. Karlof always complained that he had never been paid. Although the show never aired the episodes went into storage somewhere to be resurrected years later in the 1980's (after they had gone into public domain) to be aired on late night cable TV and home video where they've been available ever since. The survival of this otherwise obscure show is itself a twist of fate since many other shows it it's time have been long lost. That the show had Boris Karloff's name attached probably explains why it wasn't simply tossed away decades earlier, and since it had lapsed into public domain made it easy to program for early cable TV which had little programming of it's own as yet. From the episodes left we can say that while it would probably never made it into the status of the Big Three it would have been a solid show.

Given it's short (or non-existent) life "The Veil" did not get to attract many notable guest stars however the show did manage to score a couple of up-and-comers in George Hamilton and the ubiquitous Patrick McNee, along with a few veterans; Eve Brent ("Tarzan"), Ron Hagerty ("Sky King"), Morris Ankrum ("Perry Mason") and Claudia Bryar, who would later turn up in "Psycho 2".

"THE VEIL";


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"13 DEMON STREET";


Like "The Veil" this was another show which has survived in spite of not actually making it to air, at least not in America. Like "The Veil" the series was filmed in 1960 by an independent production company formed by Hollywood veteran Curt Siodmak who had credits ranging from writing "The Wolfman" to directing B-Movies like "Love Slaves Of The Amazon". In a bid to cut costs he made a deal to shoot the series in Sweden using their facilities, crews and some actors. After a series of episodes were made (ironically exactly thirteen of them) Siodmak tried to find an American buyer without success and then gave up filming more. The shows may have aired in Sweden at some point however as existing episodes have Swedish subtitles.

This anthology was hosted by Lon Chaney jr and based around the theme that Chaney was an undead spirit cursed to search for someone who had committed a crime worse than his, which of course were never explained. The episodes are about the crimes Chaney's nameless narrator witnesses. This makes the stories closer to the quirky crime stories of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" than the supernatural oddities of "Twilight Zone", "Lights Out", "One Step Beyond" and "The Veil", or the sci-fi of "Outer Limits" and "Tales Of Tomorrow", in spite of the beyond-the-grave intros. Although one episode; "The Black Hand" is an obvious rip-off of the classic German silent horror classic "The Hands Of Orlock" in which a killer's hands are amputated and grafted on to another man's hand, only to take him over and turn him into a killer. It's probably the best episode done.

Chaney was a rather morose and wooden actor with a heavy face, bleary eyes and raspy voice made worse by his heavy drinking and smoking. He owed his career less to his own charms and more to his famous name, after his father the great Lon Chaney sr, silent screen star of horror classics "Phantom Of The Opera" and "Hunchback Of Notre Dame" which led to the lucky break of being cast in his own horror classic in "The Wolfman" followed by a bunch of B-movies and serials. Like Karlof and Lugosi he was able to parley this into a long career with numerous film and TV credits. However Chaney lacked the presence or talent of Boris Karlof nor did he have the eccentric charisma of Lugosi. As a host he also lacked the droll wit of Hitchcock or the cool, wry charm of Rod Serling. In his intros he looks disheveled, tired and hungover, although he always did by this point in his career. Unlike Karloff in "The Veil" Chaney does not actually act in the episodes however.

Although Siodmack had shown himself to be a good writer as a director he was pedestrian with little of the sense of style of the best "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits" episodes. The rather spartan sets also lack the lush sheen of "The Veil". The actors are unknowns, and judging by the names are presumably a mix of Americans, Brits and Swedes and although they are fluent in English some have noticeable accents. The show explains this by setting the stories in Europe so that's not really a problem. However the level of acting is often stiff and awkward giving the whole thing a rather amateurish low-budget look. It does however have an oddly sleazy b-movie feel so it's not hard to see why American TV turned it down. In fact it's hard to see how Siodmak thought he would be able to sell this to TV in the first place.

After failing to find an American buyer for the show Siodmak had some of the episodes edited together as an anthology movie under the title "Satan's Messenger" in 1963 and dumped into the drive-in movie circuit where the names of Lon Chaney and Curt Siodmak still had some pull. Both the TV series and movie versions are in public domain and show up on bargain DVD collections.

"13 DEMON STREET";


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN";


"13 Demon Street" was actually Curt Siodmak's second attempt at a TV horror anthology, his first try was this show from 1958 which was done for the legendary Hammer Studios in Britain as a potential TV show in America or Britain. The idea was to do an anthology series based on stories from the traditional monster movies from the 1930's such as "Frankenstein", "Dracula", "The Wolfman", "The Mummy" etc. Thus "Tales Of Frankenstein" may have been a working title. As it happened nobody picked up the show and it never moved beyond the pilot episode. This episode recycles stock footage from Universal Studios films "Bride Of Dracula" (1931) and "The Inner Sanctum" which causes some problems when the sound doesn't synch up. But it's still a decent recreation of the 1930's monster movies from Universal Studios. As you expect from Hammer Studios it's nicely lush and Gothic, in a low budget kind of way. It's a little hard to see how long they could have continued on in this vein by recycling classic monster movies. The cast are mostly unknowns except for Richard Bull, an American TV and film character actor with a long career stretching from the 1950's to the 2000's and included roles in "Little House On The Prairie', "Voyage The Bottom Of The Sea" and "Mannix". This pilot somehow was saved to later be repackaged in DVD collections with "13 Demon Street" and "The Veil", sometimes incorrectly labeled as an episode of one of those shows. Conversely another DVD version is floating which claims to include a second episode about Jack The Ripper, but that story is actually an episode that was taken from "The Veil" after the fact.

"TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN";


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were a number of other anthologies from TV's B&W era with titles like; "Escape" (another former radio show), "Hands Of Mystery", "The Clock", "Out Of The Fog", "Volume One", "Mystery Theatre", "Science Fiction Theatre" and "Great Ghost Stories". Most of these shows are unavailable and probably long lost.

GOLDEN EARING ~ "TWILIGHT ZONE";

Adventures In Animation; George Harriman's "Krazy Kat"

George Harriman (1880 - 1944) is, along with Winsor McKay and Richard Outcault, one of the founding figures in cartooning and animation in the twentieth century. It was they who established the look and approach of all modern cartoons in the Edwardian Era. Previously the archetypal cartoonist was Thomas Nast with his carefully detailed drawings, densely packed with details, he was the apex of Victorian cartoonists. Starting in the 1890's a new style emerged, more open and flowing and less literal minded, led first by Richard Outcault whose newspaper strips "Gasoline Alley" (with it's "Yellow Kid" character) and "Buster Brown" established many of the conventions followed by most cartoon strips to this day; recurring characters, dialogue bubbles and muti-pannelled strips that told a story. He favoured simpler backgrounds and a cleaner, less detailed look. Outcault's wildly popular strips were followed by Winsor McCay's refinements in such classic strips as "Litle Nemo", "Dream Of A Rarebit Fiend", "Little Sammy Sneeze" and "A Pilgrim's Progress". McCay, a better and more imaginative illustrator than Outcault, introduced a cleaner, more flowing style that looks strikingly modern and more in tune with contemporary art movements such as Art Nouveau, Futurism, Expressionism and Cubism. George Harriman would complete the evolution of the modern comic strip. (note; I've already written extensively about Winsor McCay here).

Winsor McCay, for all his brilliance and imagination, was still literal in his visual style, although not in his themes. His human characters still look exactly like human characters, only slightly exaggerated. His animal characters look and act like animals, they do not (usually) talk or wear clothes like people. By contrast in "Krazy Kat" George Harriman's characters were animals who walked upright, talked, wore clothes and acted like humans. They also did not look like literal illustrations of animals, as McCay would have done, but rather as crudely stylized versions. They were symbols of human characters rather than literal representations. In fact there were no humans at all in "Krazy Kat". The background scenery in "Krazy Kat" was equally stylized, usually made up of flat featureless plains with an occasional oddly shaped tree, cactus or mesa in the distance and angular clouds in a starless night sky. Nast's backgrounds were full of meticulous and literal detail. Outcault's were less densely packed but still literal minded portrayal of contemporary scenes. McCay experimented with fantastical and bizarre backgrounds but they were always presented as the character's visiting a fantasy or dream world and readers would accept them as such. McCay's strips always started and ended with the characters in the "real world" before sending them to the fantasy world. Harriman's "Karzy Kat" however was a self contained world were everything was strange and talking animals ran free, there was no "normal world" with regular humans to return to.



Since the heyday of McCay and Harriman in the 1900's all cartoons and animation fall into one of two schools; either McCay or Harriman. McCay's influence is shown in all the superhero, horror and western comics from the 1930's to today, strips like "Doonesbury", "Bloom County", "Blondie", "Denis The Menace", "Henry", "Andy Capp", "Scooby Doo", "Dick Tracy", the epic animated features from Walt Disney, the Fleischer Brothers classic "Superman" toons and the (much) lower budget toons of the 1960's television such as "Spider Man", "Rocket Robin Hood", "Captain America", "Thor" (all from the same Krantz Studios) and "Space Angel", "Captain Fathom", "Clutch Cargo" (all from Cambria Studios) and modern toons like "Beetlejuice", "Inspector Gadget" (both from Nelvana) and parodies like "Space Angel" ending ultimately with Anime. The Harriman influence is shown in the early Disney Mickey Mouse toons, the Warner Bros toons of Chuck Jones, Friz Freling and Tex Avery (especially "The Roadrunner" and "The Pink Panther"), Ub Iwerks "Flip The Frog", the Fleischer Bros "Betty Boop" and "Popeye" toons, "Peanuts", "Broom Hilda", "B.C.", "The Wizard Of Id", "Felix The Cat", "Fritz The Cat" and modern abstract and absurdest toons such as "South Park", "Ren & Stimpy" and "Sponge Bob Square Pants". "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" manage to combine both schools.

Unlike Winsor McCay, whose early work already showed an individual style, George Harriman did not start out as an especially noteworthy artist, let alone a groundbreaker. Born in 1880 in New Orleans, Harriman's background has always been something of a mystery. Possibly even to him. It is believed that he was of Creole background. Creoles had a different tradition from Southern blacks; they had never been slaves, they were educated, middle class bilingual and Catholic. However in the Jim Crow south Creoles were officially considered black and as such there was little opportunity for them to advance. Accordingly his parents immigrated to Los Angeles when he was about ten years old. In later years Harriman (who had a dark complexion and dark curly hair) would tell people his background was a mixture of Spanish, Cuban, Greek and Turkish although it's firmly established his family had been in New Orleans for many years. He did not have any particular art training but was talented enough to land a job at seventeen at the Los Angeles Herald where he did occasional advertising and political and sports cartoons. At this point his style was quite conservative in the style of established Victorian cartoonists such as Thomas Nast, Joseph Keppler and Fredrick Burr Opper. In 1900 he hopped a freight train to New York where he eventually landed a job with humour magazine "Judge" before being picked up by the Pulitzer chain. Harriman had a regular job as a sports cartoonist (in the days before photographs could be easily reproduced sports sections relied on cartoonists) as well as doing a series of comic strips.



These strips started with "Musical Mose" in 1902. Mose was a character from blackface minstrel shows, a comic hustler who spoke in an exaggerated dialect. By any modern standard these strips are blatantly racist even taking in to consideration Harriman's own mixed race background, although this type of humour was quite common at the time. He also did a number of one-off strips on various subjects. By this time his style had advanced to the more free flowing and less cluttered style of Richard Outcault, then the most popular cartoonist of the day.

Between 1903 and 1910 Harriman developed a series of often short lived strips with titles like "Professor Otto & His Auto", "Acrobatic Archie" (about a mischievous child), "Two Jolly Jackies" (about two sailors), "Lariat Pete" (a cowboy), "Major Ozone", "Home Sweet Home", "Baron Mooch", "Mr Proones The Plumber" and a number of others. Some of these strips were popular enough and at this point his style had again evolved to resemble contemporaries strips like Bud Fisher's "Mutt & Jeff", "Bringing Up Father", and "The Katzenjammer Kids". By this time Harriman had shown himself skilled in working within the established styles of his contemporaries but he had yet to develop a style of his own.

"Acrobatic Archie"


In 1909 Harriman developed his first all-animal strips with "Alexander The Cat", "Daniel & Patsy", "Polly & Her Pals" and "Gooseberry Sprig". In 1910 Harriman (who had moved back to Los Angeles in 1906) returned to New York and started another strip,"The Dingbats", about a wacky family. This was not a particularly noteworthy strip and would have no doubt been a short lived as the rest but that year Harriman stumbled on to his iconic characters. In one "Dingbats" strip he found some empty space at the bottom of the panels so he added in a separate strip about a cat and a mouse. The strip reversed the dynamic between cat and mouse where instead of having the cat chase the mouse, the cat was instead shown as a lazy innocent tormented by a bullying mouse. Soon the cat and mouse became popular enough to merit their own strip and by 1912 they had they had a stand-alone strip called "Krazy Kat".



The story-lines of "Krazy Kat" were simple; Krazy was a sweet, innocent Kat who was blindly in love with Ignatz, a bad tempered mouse. Ignatz however despised Krazy and responded to Krazy's flirtations by tossing bricks at Krazy's head. This provoked another character (brought in from the earlier "Gooseberry Sprig" strip) called Offisa Pup, a squat bulldogish type wearing a policeman's uniform to intervene. Offisa Pup had a crush on Krazy (which the rather clueless Krazy never seemed to notice) and would try to protect Krazy by throwing Ignatz in jail, only to have Krazy rescue him. There were also a number of secondary characters who dropped in from time to time to cause trouble or comment on the bizarre love triangle. The sexuality of Krazy caused much debate with Harriman himself at first unsure, referring to the character as both he or she at various times. Krazy is wearing a ribbon with a bow around his/her neck but at other times the bow appears to be a men's wing collar instead. Eventually Harriman decided that Krazy was an "asexual sprite". The characters all spoke in a difficult lingo that combined street slang, black dialect from minstrel shows, Yiddish and other puns and deliberate misspellings from vaudeville "ethnic" routines that were not always easy to dis-cipher but which fascinated many poets, writers and musicians. This may have reflected Harriman's New Orleans origins and a knowledge of minstrelsy and ragtime slang. These prose flights alone might have been enough to earn Harriman a footnote as an influence with later Beatnick figures like Slim Gaillard and Lord Buckley, with Jack Keruac himself citing Krazy Kat as a favorite.

One major difference between McCay and Harriman is that while McCay was clearly a brilliant and imaginative illustrator he was no writer. His dialogue was clunky, wordy and lacking in meter. Consisting of many repetitive run-on sentences, his dialogue often had to be crammed into the word bubbles, sometimes even running out of room. This suggested that McCay worked out dialogue only after the artwork, as an afterthought. Similarly McCay's characters, however well drawn, were two dimensional, lacking any real personality and never taking any initiative in their stories. They were always mere observers; McCay would send them into some bizarre fantasy or dream world, lovingly created, which they would observe and comment on until he brought them back. End of story. The only exception to this rule was the character of Flip, an unshaven, cigar chomping, misanthropic clown from Little Nemo. The rest of McCay's characters, from Sammy Sneeze to The Pilgrim to Little Nemo were blank slates. McCay's focus was on his art work. In "Krazy Kat" however Harriman however created a stable of characters who had distinct (if limited) personalities.



More groundbreaking in "Krazy Kat" was the strip's visual style. In earlier strips the animal characters were drawn in a fairly linear and detailed style. However Harriman developed a style that was more stylized and minimalistic consisting of blocky shapes and simple colours while still remaining recognizable as the animals they represented. His characters while simple also were able to show facial expressions and emotions. This style was radically different than the conventional styles but would become highly influential on future cartoonists like Walt Disney whose early "Mickey Mouse" strips and toons greatly resemble "Krazy Kat".

Besides the characters, the backgrounds were equally groundbreaking. Previous strips used backgrounds that had conventional background scenery. Winsor McCay had broken that mold with some of his dream-like fantasy backdrops but Harriman's stylized backdrops were different in their stark simplicity and beauty. Heavily influenced by the desolate plains of the Southwest in Arizona and New Mexico (where he would later move) with their flat featureless landscapes dotted with oddly shaped mesa rock formations and lonely cacti and sagebrush. Harriman's backgrounds offered an other-worldly dreamscape populated by strange characters. Once "Krazy Kat" became popular enough to score a prized spot in the colourized weekend editions his strips became even more dreamlike as Harriman would colour the starless skys jet black, orange or yellow with occasional smudgy clouds or a misshapen moon. The influence of these expressionistic backgrounds can be especially seen in those of the "Roadrunner", "Pink Panther" and "Rocket Robin Hood" cartoons and comic strips like "Broom Hilda" and "B.C." and the works of Dr Suess and Ralph Bakshi.



As with Winsor McCay, the question of where George Harriman took his influences from is an interesting one. The Expressionist and Cubist movements were contemporary but it's unknown if Harriman, with little advanced art training, had any exposure to these avant garde European schools at this time. Many have noted the resemblance of Harriman's backgrounds with the paintings of Salvador Dali, but Dali was still a child at this point. Harriman seems to have worked out his own style independent of higher art schools although his background showed he was well aware of the work of other cartoonists, including no doubt McCay. Harriman did not have the draftsmanship skills of McCay or his meticulous attention to detail but his ability to work fast on multiple projects and the rather improvised nature of the early "Krazy Kat" strips may have led him to work out a simple, uncluttered response to McCay's dream world that he then quickly expanded on. The addition of colour added to his distinctive style.



The weird and unique strip became a success for Harriman, giving him at last a long-run strip. Although the strip was too weird and difficult to become hugely popular with the general public it did gain a loyal and influential following amongst artists and intellectuals. The combination of the strip's outlandish visual style, odd verse-like dialect and charming if repetitive love triangle earned the strip praise from the likes of H.L. Menken, e.e. cummings, Will Rogers, Gilbert Seldens, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Walter Lippman, Robert Benchley, Ezra Pound, Lord Buckley, E.B.White, Frank Capra and Harold Lloyd. President Woodrow Wilson was such a devoted fan that he would interrupt cabinet meetings to read the latest strip which he also had sent to him while he was in Europe in 1919. In 1921 composer John Alden Carpenter even wrote a "Krazy Kat" ballet which was actually performed. Earlier the then popular Ragtime banjoist Fred Van Epps recorded a soundtrack to a Krazy Kat cartoon (more on the Krazy Kat toons below). The most important fan (from Harriman's point of view) was publisher William Randolph Hearst who gave Harriman a lifetime contract for the strip to be carried on all papers which he honored for over twenty years until Harriman's death.

FRED VAN EPPS ~ "KRAZY KAT GOES A WOOING";


ANIMATED ADAPTATIONS;


By 1909 Winsor McCay had already done pioneering work to make animation practical. There had been crude experiments in animation for years with only limited results. It was McCay who developed the basic techniques that are still essentially used today, at least until computer animation was invented. McCay's cartoons were fluid and lifelike to an amazing degree and led to the birth of a new medium which he encouraged as he happily shared his new techniques rather than seek a copyright and issue lawsuits as Edison surely would have. Accordingly in 1916 the first "Krazy Kat" cartoons were made by Hearst's Vitagraph News Pictorials, a studio that normally made newsreels. They had limited involvement from Harriman himself and were actually animated by either Frank Moser or Leon Searle. Moser was a trained artist originally from Kansas who had worked as a newspaper cartoonist in Des Moines and New York. Searle was another newspaper cartoonist who worked for Pulitzer in New York and Philadelphia. Neither had any animation experience, although at that point neither did anybody else.

"KRAZY KAT GOES A WOOING" (1916);


These cartoons kept the basic look and characters from the original strip along with the love triangle however simplified to fit in with their short (approx 3 minute) length. The characters looked exactly as they had in print. However the toons lacked the distinctive backgrounds of the strips, especially the colour strips. The toons also lacked much of Harriman's distinctive dialect verse. The stories relied mostly on slapstick which was typical of comedy shorts of the time although they did try to maintain some of the basic feel of the original strip. However the most glaring shortcoming of these strips is the animation itself. Frank Moser simply did not have the McCay's talent as an illustrator or an animator. McCay's animation is fluid and lifelike while Moser's is crude and jumpy. To be fair McCay's techniques were very new and Moser had little time to learn them, these toons were also probably done rather quickly, especially compared to McCay's exacting work. With his flowing animation and legendary attention to detail Winsor McCay took over a year to do his masterpiece "The Sinking Of The Lusitania" while Moser did the entire "Krazy Kat" series in less time. The time and work McCay spent on his toons in fact led directly to Hearst (who also employed McCay) to eventually ban McCay from further animation work as Hearst felt it was distracting him from his newspaper work, much to McCay's annoyance. While the Moser strips are clearly inferior to McCay's work it must be said that their simple visual style was more influential than McCay's more complex and difficult works at least in appearance if not animation technique. The "Felix The Cat" cartoons which appeared in 1919 produced by Pat Sullivan looked exactly like "Krazy Kat". Warner Brothers would follow with their own similar series,"Bosco" in 1927. When Walt Disney began the first Mickey Mouse cartoons a decade later the "Krazy Kat" resemblance was obvious. Frank Moser would go on to an influencial career of his own as one of the founders of the successful Terrytoons Studios in 1929 with characters like Heckle & Jeckle and Mighty Mouse. He also became a respected painter. Moser died well into the TV era in 1964. Leon Searle was less fortunate, he made over a dozen "Krazy Kat" toons before dying suddenly in 1919 aged only 38.

"KRAZY KAT; BUGOLIGIST";


In 1925 Bill Nolan, a respected animator who had worked on "Felix" took over for a new series of "Krazy Kat" toons. Unlike Moser's toons which kept true to Harriman's originals, Nolan's toons in fact resembled "Felix" both in appearance as well as in discarding the basic plot-lines and dialect in favour of a pure slapstick approach. They also dispensed with Harriman's iconic backgrounds in favour of more conventional settings. These toons were successful enough to continue (under different animators) until 1940. Some of these toons were quite imaginative visually and even surrealistic but did not have Harriman's distinctive poetic doggerel. Harriman had nothing to do with these toons and probably did not approve although he likely did appreciate the royalty cheques. Nolan would go on to work with Walter Lanz on the "Oswald The Rabbit" series. He died in 1954.

"KRAZY KAT AT THE CIRCUS";


George Harriman died in 1944 and his remaining finished strips were published for a few more weeks before the strip was discontinued. While it was not uncommon to continue strips after a cartoonists death, Hearst felt that Harriman's unique style was irreplaceable, although it's also worth recalling that the strips were not really money makers anyway. Still their influence was acknowledged. The now famous Walt Disney wrote Harriman's surviving daughter a letter in which he praised George Harriman as one of the founders of modern cartooning and animation and a personal influence. (he also did the same with Winsor McCay's son)

KRAZY KAT; "BARS & STRIPES";


In 1962 King Features made a series of "Krazy Kat" toons for television. These toons made an attempt to return to the basic appearance of the Harriman originals. They were proceeded in the fifties by a comic book series put out by Dell Publications which had little to do with the original strip and was instead a basic mainstream animal strip which Felix had also become. These comics were popular enough to stay in print until the 1960's by which time they were taken over by Gold Key Comics. These fifties and sixties versions helped to introduce "Krazy Kat" to the psychedelic generation and cartoonists like Ralph Bakshi ("Fritz The Cat"), R. Crumb and Matt Groening who's "Simpsons" would have the ultimate "Krazy Kat" parody in it's "Itchy & Scratchy" characters. While "Itchy & Scratchy" are often seen as taking the likes of "Tom & Jerry" and the likes, which they are, they also incorporate elements of the dysfunctional relationship relationship between Krazy and Ignatz. No matter how many times Itchy the mouse (note the similar name) explodes, disembowels, decapitates, immolates, etc, etc Scratchy the Cat, Scratchy still loves Itchy and stands by his mouse. Some Kats never learn.

KRAZY KAT; "THE HOT-CHA MELODY";