Besides his well-known pieces, film noir master, F.W. Murnau, is also represented on DVD by a minor but nonetheless interesting work, "The Haunted Castle" (1921), made just a year before the director's seminal "Nosferatu". Now available on a truly excellent release, this DVD is not only complete with all the iris ins and iris outs (deleted from the truly execrable print on a rival label), but presented in all the splendor of its original tints.
True, the movie itself is rather stagily directed with little use even of pans, let alone tracking shots. Nonetheless, the story is reasonably intriguing. What makes "The Haunted Castle" worth seeing, however, is neither the social fabric of its upper-class setting, the mystery mechanics of the plot, the two briefly surreal dream sequences or even the successfully more naturalistic performances (judged by the general standards prevailing in German cinema in 1921) delivered by most of the players, but the overwhelmingly charismatic presence of Olga Chekhova. That name will mean nothing to 99% of my readers, but from 1930 to around 1950, she was easily in private life the most important movie star in the world. As I say, "The Haunted Castle" is must viewing simply to get a glimpse of the quality that made Olga Chekhova sought after by the most famous (and infamous) men of her time. Mind you, this is only the third of her 139 films as an actress (she also directed one and produced five).
As a postscript, in order to prove my theory that many of the information sites on the net are staffed by fools, allow me to point out that the name, Victor Bluetner (listed as an actor in the movie's credits) is an obvious pseudonym. You won't find too many Bluetners in a phone directory. I'd say that the name was derived from "blut" (the German word for blood), plus the common suffix "ner" (as in Wagner). I laughed when I consulted a well-known Spanish site and read in all seriousness, "date of birth: unknown; place of birth: not specified"!
True, the movie itself is rather stagily directed with little use even of pans, let alone tracking shots. Nonetheless, the story is reasonably intriguing. What makes "The Haunted Castle" worth seeing, however, is neither the social fabric of its upper-class setting, the mystery mechanics of the plot, the two briefly surreal dream sequences or even the successfully more naturalistic performances (judged by the general standards prevailing in German cinema in 1921) delivered by most of the players, but the overwhelmingly charismatic presence of Olga Chekhova. That name will mean nothing to 99% of my readers, but from 1930 to around 1950, she was easily in private life the most important movie star in the world. As I say, "The Haunted Castle" is must viewing simply to get a glimpse of the quality that made Olga Chekhova sought after by the most famous (and infamous) men of her time. Mind you, this is only the third of her 139 films as an actress (she also directed one and produced five).
As a postscript, in order to prove my theory that many of the information sites on the net are staffed by fools, allow me to point out that the name, Victor Bluetner (listed as an actor in the movie's credits) is an obvious pseudonym. You won't find too many Bluetners in a phone directory. I'd say that the name was derived from "blut" (the German word for blood), plus the common suffix "ner" (as in Wagner). I laughed when I consulted a well-known Spanish site and read in all seriousness, "date of birth: unknown; place of birth: not specified"!