Waxworks (Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) 1923 | Directed by Paul Leni | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
The owner of a Waxmuseum needs for three of his models stories to be told to the audience. For that reason he has hired a writer, who after one look at the owner's pretty daughter, starts writing stories featuring the models, the daughter and himself. In the first, he is a baker, married to the girl, who is a little bit too much flirting with the customers, among them the wezir of sultan Harun Al-Rashid, who has just ordered his execution because the smell from the bakery is drifting to his palace, yet Harun Al-Rashid wants to meet the beautiful girl himself, while an angry baker is trying to get the Sultan's whishing ring to proof he's not a weakling... The second story is about Tzar Ivan the Terrible who likes watching people die together with his court-chemist. When he orders the execution of the chemist, the chemist thinks of a nice revanche, but till the revanche works, a nobleman is murdered, his daughter kidnapped by Ivan and her groom tortured. While writing the third story about Jack the Ripper, he falls asleep and dreams he and the girl are pursued by that serial killer. — Stephan Eichenberg
Title :   Wixworks (1923)
Original title : Das Wachsfigurenkabinett
Directed : Paul Leni
Duration : 1 h 47 min.
Original card : English
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Fantasy, Horror
Country : German

 

Gertrud (1964) Directed by C.T. Dreyer | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Nine years after the release of his acknowledged masterpiece, Ordet, Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer offered this a story of an individual in search of a measure of personal peace and serenity, which proved to be his last completed film. Gertrud Kanning, like the maid Joan in Dreyer's best-known film, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, is a woman in isolation. On the eve of her husband's appointment to a cabinet minister post, she announces that she is leaving their loveless marriage. But her younger lover Erland Jansson, a concert pianist, is more interested in keeping their affair illicit than in continuing it in the open. Gertrud's old lover, the poet Gabriel Lidman, offers more than his friendship, but she holds back from turning to him, instead choosing to live out her life in solitude rather than compromise with love again. Adapted from a 1920s play by Hjalmar Soberberg, Gertrud plays out in long takes, with few close-ups and exterior scenes. Though initial critical reaction to the film was largely unfavorable, its reputation has steadily grown, especially considered in the context of Dreyer's long career. Tom Wiener
Title : Gertrud (1964)
Directed : C.T. Dreyer
Duration : 115 min.
dialogue in Danish
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Drama
Country : Denmark   

Tabu (A Story of the South Seas) 1931 | Directed by F.W. Murnau | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Tabu is a lyrical documentary of Polynesian life, given added audience appeal with a fictional plotline. The story concerns a young island girl (Anna Chevalier, who like everyone in the cast is a non-professional) who has been consecrated to the gods by her tribespeople. It is thus "tabu" for her to marry; still, she falls in love with a handsome young pearl fisherman (Matahi). The island's holy man takes the girl away in his schooner. Her lover swims after her, but eventually sinks disconsolately into the ocean. Shot completely on location, it was supposed to be a collaboration between German director F. W. Murnau and American documentary producer Robert Flaherty. Flaherty withdrew from the project when he realized the film was taking a romanticized approach. Murnau never lived to see the final product; he was killed in a car accident just before the film's opening. Begun as a silent film in 1929, Tabu was released in that form in 1931, despite the fact that talking pictures already had been established for nearly three years. Hal Erickson
Title : Tabu
Ano : 1931
Directed : F.W. Murnau
Duration : 81 min.
Original card : English
Subtitles : Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Drama, Romance, Nature
Country : USA - Unknown 

Sumurun (1921) Directed by Ernst Lubitsch | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
One Arabian Night is the inadequate American title bestowed upon director Ernst Lubitsch's brilliant German drama Sumurun. In what turned out to be his last on-camera appearance (he was a former slapstick comedian), Lubitsch stars as Yeggar, a hunchbacked clown who works with a travelling carnival. Arab sheik Paul Wegener demands that the troupe's dancing girl Pola Negri be sequestered in his harem. Yeggar faithfully follows along, and is a horrified witness as Wegener kills Negri for presumed unfaithfulness. The wizened clown vows revenge on the wicked Sheik. Inspired by the popular stage pantomime "The Arabian Nights", Sumurun is the film that encouraged Hollywood to invite Lubitsch into its fold-whereupon the director abandoned melodrama for good and all and concentrated instead on elegant sex comedies. Hal Erickson
Title :   Sumurun
Ano : 1921
Directed : Ernst Lubitsch
Duration : 85 min.
Original card : German
Subtitles : English, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Drama, Romance, Action, Adventure
Country : Germany   

Tartuffe (Her Tartüff) 1925 | Directed by F.W. Murnau | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
How typical of the great German director F. W. Murnau that he used Moliere's scathing satirical comedy Tartuffe as a launching pad for an extended exercise in expressionism. Emil Jannings plays the title character, a religious hypocrite who capitalizes upon the piety of others to line his own pockets. Lusting after Elmire (Lil Dagover), the daughter of gullible millionaire Orgon (Werner Krauss), Tartuffe all but convinces Orgon to hand over Elmire -- and all his land holdings -- on a silver platter in exchange for Divine absolution. On the verge of triumphantly taking over Orgon's mansion and tossing the old man out, Tartuffe is foiled by the deux ex machina arrival of an emissary of the King, who arrests the "hero" for his chicanery (this final scene was imposed upon Moliere by the French censors; originally, Tartuffe got away with his crimes). In his efforts to make the property more cinematic, Murnau adds a framing story concerning an old woman who tries to cheat an old man out of a fortune while the two of them watch a theatrical performance of the Moliere play. Chock full of offbeat camera angles, forced-perspective sets, and spiderlike shadows, Tartuff owes more to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari than it does to Moliere. Emil Jannings went on to collaborate with Murnau in the director's next production, a lavish adaptation of Goethe's Faust. Hal Erickson
Title :   Tartuffe
Original title : Her Tartüff
Ano : 1925
Directed : F.W. Murnau  
Duration : 74 min.
Original card : English
Subtitles : Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Drama, Comedy  
Country : United States    

Vampyr (1932) Directed by C.T. Dreyer | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Vampyr ranks in many circles as one of the greatest horror films of all time. Inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, the story concerns a mysterious series of killings, committed by a crone of a female vampire (Henriette Gerard). The story is told through the eyes of a holiday reveller (Julian West), who at first scoffs at the notion of a supernatural murderer, but who is eventually forced to believe that there are more things in heaven and earth. Dreyer offers few explanations of the phenomena he presents on screen: the strange and frightening happenings just happen, as casually as any everyday occurrence. As was his custom, Dreyer mostly uses nonprofessionals in his cast. Vampyr is available in a wide variety of severely edited and duped versions.  Hal Erickson
Title :  Vampyr
Ano : 1932
Directed :  Carl Theodor Dreyer
Duration : 71 min.
Original card : English
Subtitles : Spanish, Portuguese
Genres : Mystery, Fantasy, Horror  
Country : Germany, Denmark, France, United States  

The Haunted Castle (Schloss Vogelrod) 1921 | Directed by F.W. Murnau | VIDEO

Synopsis :
The German The Haunted Castle (Schloss Vogelrod) has been described as director F.W. Murnau's "warm-up" for his subsequent Nosferatu. At this point in his career, Murnau was more interested in effects than in story or characterization, but those effects were among the best within the boundaries of Germany's "Caligari School." The cast included Paul Hartmann, Arnold Korff, Paul Bildt and Olga Tschenova. Hal Erickson
Title : The Haunted Castle
Original title : Schloss Vogelrod
Ano : 1921
Directed : F.W. Murnau
Duration : 75 min.
Genres : Horror, Thriller
Country : Germany

Phantom (1921) Directed by F.W. Murnau | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Alfred Abel plays a store clerk who is nearly driven to insanity when he sees an apparition of a girl driving a team of white horses. He is sentenced to 20 years in jail when he is convicted of stealing to raise money for a prostitute who looks life the ghost girl. Lil Dagover, Aud Egede Nissen, and Lya de Putti star in this feature directed by legendary filmmaker F.W. Murnau. Dan Pavlides
Title :  Phantom (1921)
Original title : Phantom
Directed : F.W. Murnau
Duration : 125 min.
Subtitles : Portuguese,
Genres : Horror, Thriller
Country : Germany

Destiny (Der Müde Tod) 1929 | Directed by Fritz Lang | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Fritz Lang was a stickler for realism in his American films; not so his German silents, which were fanciful to the point of being fairy tales. Der Müde Tod, Lang's first big critical success, is an allegorical tale of love, fidelity and death. The heroine (Lil Dagover), who in her dreams is confronted by Mr. Death, argues for the life of her beloved, but is unable to make the personal sacrifices that Death insists upon. Originally presented in three parts, Der Müde Tod was often boiled down to a single film for its non-German showings. Its English-language titles range from The Weary Death to Between Two Worlds to Beyond the Wall to Destiny. Hal Erickson
Title :  Destiny (1921)
Original title : Der Müde Tod
Directed : Fritz Lang
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Subtitles : English, Portuguese, Spanish
Genre : Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction  
Country : Germany 

 

Finis Terræ (1929) Directed by Jean Epstein | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
With a structure similar to an organic poem, "FINIS TERRAE" transcends the linear narrative of a mere documentary. Filmed in 1929, in the midst of the French avant-garde movement, this experimental work was created by Epstein, who mixed the rhythm of cleverly decorated images with some techniques from German expressionist cinema, presenting precious images, in "heaven and earth are protagonists" . A social documentary with bold experiments in the field of visual anthropology.

The film is the first in a trilogy that portrays island life off the coast of Brittany.

The following works,
"MOR VRAN" in 1931
"L'OR DES MERS" in 1932 complete the series.
Original Title : Finis Terrae
Ano : 1929
Directed : Jean Epstein
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Audio 2.0 : French
Subtitles : Portuguese
Genre : Documentary
Country : France

The Cat and the Canary (1927) Directed by Paul Leni | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Frank Willard's barn-storming stage melodrama Cat and the Canary was filmed four times over a fifty-year period. This silent 1927 version stars Laura LaPlante as one of several potential heirs to a huge fortune. Brought to a foreboding mansion on the 20th anniversary of their eccentric benefactor's death, the heirs must sit in silence as the lawyer (Tully Marshall) recites the terms of the will. The legacy hinges upon three sealed letters, each to be opened at a strategic point in the evening. Also crucial to the inheritance is the insistence that all the heirs spend the night in the creepy old mansion. Nervous Creighton Hale appoints himself LaPlante's protector--a far from simple job, given the many hidden panels and revolving doors which festoon the house. When the lawyer is murdered, LaPlante is the principle suspect. Cat and the Canary was remade as The Cat Creeps in 1930, and under its own title in 1939 (with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard) and 1979. Hal Erickson
Title : The Cat and the Canary (1927)
Directed : Paul Leni
Duration : 1 h 48 min
Genre : Mystery, Thriller  
Country : Germany

The Golem (Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam) 1920 | Directed by Paul Wegener | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
In Prague, Czech Republic, in the 16th century, a rabbi creates a giant creature made of clay known as the Golem. Bringing the creature to life through sorcery, he hopes that the Golem will protect the city's Jews who are being persecuted, but the giant's gentle and compassionate personality gradually turns into madness.
Title : The Golem (1920)
Original title :  Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam
Directed : Paul Wegener
Duration : 1 h 16 min
Genre : Fantasy, Terror
Country : Germany

Leaves from Satan's Book (Blade af Satans bog) 1920 | Dir. C.T. Dreyer | VIDEO (ISO)

 Synopsis :
In 4 episodic tales of human suffering: the temptation of Jesus, the Spanish Inquisition, the French Revolution and the Russo-Finnish war of 1918, Satan attempts to win God's favor.
Title : Leaves Out of the Book of Satan
Original title : Blade af Satans bog (1920)
Directed : Carl Theodor Dreyer
Duration : 2 h 47 min
Genre : Drama
Country : Denmark

The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann) 1924 | Directed by F.W. Murnau | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
An aging doorman is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbors and society after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel.
Title : The Last Laugh (1924)
Original title : Der letzte Mann
Directed : F.W. Murnau
Duration : 1h 17 min
Genre : Drama
Country : Germany

 

Freaks (1932) Directed by Tod Browning | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
In a circus of bizarre attractions, Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) is a beautiful trapeze artist who is courted by a dwarf. She doesn't respond to his advances until she discovers that he is heir to a fortune. She then devises a plan with her lover Hercules (Henry Victor), to marry the dwarf and then despise and poison him. But on her wedding day, Cleopatra repudiates her future husband's circus friends, calling them disgusting and dirty. The freaks come together to take revenge on Cleopatra, transforming her into a person who is half woman, half chicken, without legs and almost blind.
Original title : Freaks  (1932)
Directed :  Tod Browning
Duration :  1h 02min
Genre : Drama
Country  : USA

Nota : Video only available in private mode, send your address in the comments to send it.

https://youtu.be/J7W57TvA7wU

L'Inferno (1911) Directed by Giuseppe de Liguoro | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
L'INFERNO (1911), the first known full-length Italian feature film. Based on Dante's INFERNO and Gustave Dore's haunting images, this elaborate and imaginative epic took more than three years to produce. Eerie images of bodies contort in agony while being tormented by laughing horned devils, and a screaming man holding his own decapitated head aloft make this pre-World War I phantasmagoria truly seem like something from another world. The visage of Lucifer himself remains one of the most effective ever recorded on film.
Original title : L'Inferno  (1911)
Directed : Giuseppe de Liguoro,  
Duration : 70 min.
Genre : Drama
Country : Italia

Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (1922) Directed by F.W. Murnau | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim), a real estate agent, travels to the Carpathian Mountains to sell a castle on the Baltic Sea whose owner is the eccentric Count Graf Orlock (Max Schreck), who is actually an ancient vampire who, seeking power, moves to Bremen, Germany, spreading terror in the region. Interestingly, the person who can reverse this situation is Ellen (Greta Schröder), Hutter's wife, as Orlock is attracted to her.
Original Title :  Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
Directed : F.W. Murnau
Duration : 1h 34min
Genre : Terror
Country : Alemanha

Faust (Eine Deutsche Volkssage) 1926 | Directed by F.W. Murnau | VIDEO (ISO)

Title : Faust (1926)
Original Title : Eine Deutsche Volkssage
Directed : F.W. Murnau
Duration : 116 minutos
Genre : Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country : Alemanha
Synopsis :
Disputing for power over the earth, God and Satan bet the soul of Faust, a learned alchemist. During a plague, this man despairs, burning all his books. At this time Satan sends Mephistopheles to tempt Faust with the return of his youth and the alchemist accepts the pact. One day, bored, he decides to return home, where he meets and falls in love with the beautiful Gretchen, a meeting that will be the girl's dishonor. Adaptation of Goethe's work.

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1919) Directed by Robert Weine | VIDEO (ISO)

In the year 1783, a mystic called Dr. Caligari, wandered through the cities of northern Italy with a somnambulist named Cesare, performing at fairs. And for months he kept one city after another in panic, with murders that always occurred under the same circumstances, in which he led the sleepwalker, who was under his complete control, to carry out his adventurous plans. By placing a doll in Cesare's place, when he was not in his coffin, Dr. Caligari managed to eliminate any suspicion of the sleepwalker's guilt.” This is the short preface that begins the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Kabinett von Dr. Caligari, ALE, 1919), one of the greatest horror classics. Directed by Robert Wiene, this masterpiece of silent cinema forms, alongside Nosferatu (1922) and Faust (1926), the “holy trinity” of German expressionist horror cinema; and embody what is darkest and most expressive in cinematic art. These are films that belong to the tradition of post-war pessimism, as they were made during one of the most troubled phases of German history: the end of the First World War (1914-1918). And as such, they turn towards a negative horizon, where the dominance of the shadow is almost absolute. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (the film that gave rise to German cinematic expressionism), the contrast of light and shadow is terrifying when analyzed in its essence. It was the film that established the general standards for expressionism, using and abusing the play of light and shadow, unforeseen angles, fast and rectilinear movements, tortuous and disfigured scenarios, all wrapped in a supernatural atmosphere that surprises the unsuspecting to this day. Due to these and other elements, which Wiene knew how to explore to exhaustion, this film is considered the first masterpiece of horror cinema.

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920)
Original : Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari
Directed : Robert Wiene
Country : Germany