HORROR LIBRARY: PART I (1895-1919)
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- DirectorLouis FeuilladeStarsMusidoraÉdouard MathéMarcel LévesqueAn intrepid reporter and his loyal friend battle a bizarre secret society of criminals known as The Vampires.
- DirectorHanns Heinz EwersStellan RyeStarsPaul WegenerGrete BergerLyda SalmonovaBalduin, a student of Prague, leaves his roystering companions in the beer garden, when he finds he has reached the end of his resources. He is scarcely seated in a quiet corner when a hideous, shriveled-up old man taps him upon the shoulder and whispers vaguely of a big inheritance for Prague's finest swordsman and wildest student if he will enter into a certain agreement. Balduin rebuffs him, satirically asking his weird companion to procure him "the luckiest ticket in a lottery or a doweried wife." The old man goes off chuckling and thence onward persistently shadows Balduin, exerting a sinister influence over him, while Balduin is still disconsolate under the frowns of fortune. The Countess Margit Schwarzenberg, hunting with her cousin, to whom her father has betrothed her, meets with an accident. She is thrown over her horse's head into a river, but Balduin, who has been directed to the spot by his evil genius, plunges in and rescues her. Subsequently Balduin calls to inquire as to her condition at the castle of her father, the count, but be makes a hurried departure when Baron Waldis arrives, the contrast in their appearance discrediting him. His desire to win the countess and to humiliate the baron becomes so pronounced that he readily accedes to the compact suggested by Scapinelli, the old man, who has so pertinaciously dogged his footsteps, particularly when he learns that untold wealth and power will be his when he assigns to the other the right to take from his room whatever he chooses for his own use as he desires. The agreement is signed. Balduin receives a shower of gold and notes as his portion; Scapinelli takes Balduin's soul exposed in concrete form by his shadow. Balduin prosecutes his love affair assiduously and with apparent success, till the baron is informed of it by a jealous gypsy girl. He challenges Balduin to a duel, and the latter, assured of his superiority as a fencer, readily agrees. Count Schwarzenberg learns of the impending duel and appeals to Balduin not to kill "my sister's child, my daughter's future husband, and my heir." Balduin gives his promise, but when he goes to the venue of the duel he meets, his own counterpart stalking away derisively wiping his gory sword on his cloak. Balduin turns and in the far distance sees the dying victim of the deed he swore he would not do. He rushes from the spot horror-stricken. When he regains sufficient composure he makes his way to the castle of the count, but is refused admission. Determined to explain that he had no complicity in the death of the baron, Balduin climbs into a room in which the countess is seated. She receives him coldly, but soon succumbs to his ardent wooing. Just as he seeks to leave her she notices he has no shadow and that the mirror gives no reflection of him; and she drops back affrighted, the ghastly apparition of himself which takes shape in the corner of the room sends Balduin scuttling away from the castle in a paroxysm of terror. He makes a frenzied flight through a woodland estate and the streets of Prague, but wherever he stops to recover his breath he is haunted by the counterpart of himself. He reaches his rooms and draws a murderous looking fire-arm from its case. As the phantasmagorical figure strides towards him with a sinister grin, he fires, and in a few minutes the blood gushes from his own side from a fatal wound.
- DirectorPaul WegenerHenrik GaleenStarsPaul WegenerHenrik GaleenLyda SalmonovaAn antiques dealer finds a golem, a clay statue that had been brought to life four centuries earlier by a Kabbalist rabbi to protect his people from persecution. The dealer resurrects the golem as a servant but it goes on a rampage.
- DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsHenry B. WalthallSpottiswoode AitkenBlanche SweetPrevented from dating his sweetheart by his uncle, a young man turns his thoughts to murder.
- DirectorRichard OswaldStarsAnita BerberConrad VeidtReinhold SchünzelA demon, a reaper, and the ghost of a prostitute read gothic short stories and act them out.
- DirectorPaul HurstStarsJack HoxieAnn LittlePaul HurstTwo prospectors, one the father of Skye "Lightning" Bryce and the other the father of Kate Arnold, find a large gold deposit belonging to an Indian tribe. They head for home but each sends a note to their respective off-springs advising them of their good fortune. One of the fathers conceives a plan of taking a dagger and wrapping a piece of string around the blade, after which he prints on the string with a lead pencil, the exact location of their find. If something happens to them, the string goes to the son and the knife to the daughter. That night an Indian approaches their camp and blows some mysterious wolf powder which causes a man to see wolves in place of human beings. Lightning's father see his partner as a wolf and stabs him to death; later he is brought into town in a dying condition but before dying, hands the knife and the string over to the sheriff with instructions to deliver to Lightning and Kate. The sheriff also informs Kate that Lightning's father killed her father, and she immediately turns against Lightning. "Powder" Solvang also knows the story behind the knife and the string, and is determined to gain possession of both, even to the extent of making Kate his prisoner in an opium den in Chinatown.
- DirectorOtto RippertStarsKarl BernhardArnold CzempinFred GoebelIn this apparently lost film, a beautiful dancer's sexual allure is used by an evil cripple to entice men to their deaths. Falling in love with one of the potential victims, she is told by the cripple that he will set her free if her lover, actually a murderer himself, survives and escapes a bizarre labyrinthe which runs beneath the cripple's house.
- DirectorFred NibloStarsEnid BennettDorcas MatthewsJack NelsonJournalist Betsy Thorne travels from New York to Virginia to cover a story about the disappearance of Daniel Arnold at a supposedly haunted estate. In order to get into the house, she pretends to be a maid. In the household she meets Daniel's sister Dolores, the neighbor Dr. James Dunwoody who loves Dolores, and his son Roland, who is under suspicion. Betsy pretends to be tough, but when she sees a ghost emerge from the chapel, she screams. The result is that Dolores locks her in at night. The following night, Betsy climbs out of her window and sees the ghost again, this time in the graveyard. After some intrepid investigating, she finds that playing certain chords on the chapel organ cause a door to open, leading into a passage to a tomb. Betsy bravely pursues the ghost who turns out to be Daniel, though he has become deranged. Further, she discovers that he is actually desired by the law as an international forger.
- DirectorConrad VeidtStarsConrad VeidtReinhold SchünzelGrit HegesaA banker, after a prophetic meeting with a Gypsy fortune teller, becomes delusional as he searches for a trunk which the seer has told him holds the key to either his happiness or his death.
- DirectorRupert JulianStarsMary MacLarenHerbert PriorJack MulhallDearie Lane loves Fred Millard, but she turns down his offer of marriage because she was once involved with the disreputable Mark Winfield. When she explains the situation, Fred forgives her, and they get married. For a while they live happily in a modest home. But the situation gets complex when Winfield, who owns the house, comes by to collect a delinquent payment and suddenly dies. Dearie, afraid that Fred will not understand what really happened, gets a boarder and her cook to help her hide the body. At midnight they carry it down the stairs to the countryside, but Fred hears their steps creaking on the stairs. All seems lost when the police find the body and the suspicious Fred finds Winfield's hat under a couch. He opens Dearie's private trunk and discovers the fancy clothes that Winfield gave her. Fred goes after Dearie, furiously chopping with an ax through the closet door behind which she is hiding. Dearie persuades him to listen and explains that she had kept the clothes only because she thought Fred would admire them, and that in fact Winfield died from a heart attack.
- DirectorErich KoberStarsHerr AknerElga BeckErnst EscherichIn this apparently lost film an inventor uses a strange jewel to bring to life a statue of Lilith, and falls in love with her. Soon, however, she begins to appear on a screen, also developed by the inventor, which reveals her to be a vampire who is slowly sucking his life essence from him, causing him to gradually fade away. He realizes the situation has become even more drastic when he notices his new love, Ly, is being possessed by Lilith and has also begun fading away.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsCarl de VogtGilda LangerErika UnruhResiding in a castle in the Carpathian Mountains, Hungarian nobleman Vasile Disecu becomes infatuated with Suzette, the daughter of his neighbor. He mistakes Stefana, a maid who is secretly in love with him.
- DirectorDuke WorneStarsBen F. WilsonNeva GerberWilliam DyerCarter Holmes, master criminologist, must help the oft-kidnapped Ruth Stanhope to find the 9 daggers that will unlock the secret of the cursed Devil's Trademark!
- DirectorErnst LubitschStarsPola NegriHarry LiedtkeEmil JanningsA girl is kidnapped and held captive in an ancient Egyptian temple. She is rescued and flees to England, but soon finds that her mysterious captor is still haunting her.
- DirectorFrancis FordJohn FordStarsFrancis FordMae GastonPeter GeraldAn Indian scholar seeks an American colleague who is working on a powerful explosive, trying to get to his formula by taking advantage of his drinking problem.
- DirectorMichael CurtizEdmund FritzStarsGyula GálRózsi SzöllösiKálmán KörmendyA mad scientist "creates" a beautiful but demonic woman, the result of a forced sexual union between a woman and a mandrake root, a plant said to have magical powers due to its uncanny resemblance to the human body.
- DirectorJohn Francis DillonStarsEdith RobertsLew CodyCharles K. GerrardBrewster, the bean king, has an option of renewal on a certain bean canning plant owned by Ellis. Ellis does not desire to renew and hires Wingate, a shyster lawyer, to help him. Brewster has to send Betty to renew the contract. Later he sends his lawyer to help her and Ellis' man persuades her that he is a plotter. There follows plot and counter-plot, but all-innocently Betty carries the day.
- DirectorWillis H. O'BrienStarsAlan V. DayChauncey A. DayHerbert M. DawleyIn a dream Uncle Jack looks through a magic telescope owned by the ghost of a hermit and sees what life was like millions of years ago, including a battle between prehistoric monsters.
- DirectorHolger-MadsenStarsGunnar TolnæsZanny PetersenNicolai NeiiendamA group of researchers from Earth travel in a spaceship to Mars, where, to big surprise, they find a peaceful vegetarian and pacifist civilization.
- DirectorChester WitheyStarsDorothy GishGeorge FawcettCharles K. GerrardA German-American father, loyal to his new U.S. home, finds himself on opposite sides with his son in the wartime conflict between Germany and America. The son becomes involved with German agents plotting against U.S., and the father must decide between his son and his adopted homeland.
- DirectorHarry A. PollardStarsMargarita FischerMonroe SalisburyKathleen KirkhamWhen Marta marries John Lane, Dr. Lorenz, a former suitor, determines to take her away from her husband. A year later John and Marta's happiness over an expected event is turned to grief, for the child dies and Marta suffers intensely. Dr. Lorenz attends her and administers dope, until she becomes a confirmed "fiend." Marion, who loved John, conspires with the doctor, pretending to be Marta's friend, and attempts to win John. Driven desperate by her husband's apparent neglect of her, and craving the "dope" which the doctor withholds, she leaves with Lorenz. Taking refuge from the storm in a hut, the doctor attempts to take advantage of the situation, but lighting strikes the hut and they are buried in the ruins, The doctor is killed, but Marta is saved from the ruins by John and they start life anew.
- DirectorPaul WegenerRochus GlieseStarsPaul WegenerLyda SalmonovaRochus GlieseAs a practical joke, an actor impersonates the screen monster he made famous. Complications ensue.
- DirectorRex IngramStarsCleo MadisonDick La RenoFrancis McDonaldFrivolous young Marie de Severac is frightened into following a more virtuous path, when her father relates a story in which an equally frivolous woman is entombed alive.
- DirectorDavid SmithStarsChet RyanWalter RodgersCharles WheelockSam, in love with Katie, drinks too much absinthe and dreams he is a hero saving Katie from danger.