Eerie Tales (1919)

Hast du Angst?

Well, hast du?

“Are you scared?” is a question that arises from an intertitle in the 1919 version of Unheimliche Geschichten (sometimes translated as “Uncanny Tales). The film, like the masterful Dead of Night, is composed of several stories, these framed by a brief narrative in a book shop.

We first see the three central actors in the film—Conrad Veidt, Anita Berber, and Reinhold Schünzel—smiling and nodding at the audience. Veidt even blows smoke at us. Cutting to the book shop, a nervous little man hops about, shooing his customers out. When he turns out the light, three pictures on the walls come to life. One is the Devil (Schünzel), one is a loose woman (Berber), and one is Death (Veidt). Each of them picks up a book and begins to read, the stories they peruse containing variations of themselves as different characters. No matter what happens to the people in the stories, the readers appear to be amused.

Story One "Die Erscheinung" (The Apparition) by Anselma Heine

On what appears to be a path through a city park, Veidt’s young man rescues Berber’s frightened divorcee from her mad ex-husband (Schünzel). The Stranger takes the Woman to a hotel and makes sure she is settled and comfortable. Telling her he will see her again in the morning, he then goes out for a night with some old friends. When he returns he peeks in to check on her and she is gone, her room completely disheveled. He thinks he’s in the wrong room, leaves and goes to bed. The next morning she is gone, the room is in perfect order, and the hotel staff denies that she ever existed. Who is she and what happened to her become the questions that consume him.

Story Two “Die Hand” (The Hand) by Robert Liebmann

Everyone seems to admire and fawn over a beautiful society woman, but two men are madly in love. One (Schünzel) murders the other (Veidt) by strangulation. The murdered man’s hands twist into talons and remain that way after death. Several years later, the killer meets the woman again (Berber) and she invites him to her debut as a dancer. In the theater he sees a taloned hand clutch the curtain, then the entire spirit manifests itself. A nice touch is added to the haunting when the ghost walks and we see that the invisible specter leaves tangible footprints in the dirt.

Story Three "Die schwarze Katze" (The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe)  

I’ll make a leap of faith here and assume you know this tale.

Story Four “The Suicide Club” by Robert Louis Stevenson

A man (Schünzel) finds a very private club the members of which gather to draw cards. Whomever selects the ace of spades is expected to die. The new man gets the ace and is told by the club’s president (Veidt) that he has ten minutes to live. We watch the clock counting down and at the final minute the man dies of fright. Or does he?

Story Five “Der Spuk” (The Specter by Richard Oswald)

This story ends the film on a lighter note as a husband, annoyed at a Baron to whom he has extended the courtesy of a few days recovery time after a carriage accident, carries out a false haunting to prove to his wife what a blowhard their guest really is. Veidt is the husband who tells us all that any tale ending with a man kissing his wife is an eerie tale indeed. 

Eerie Tales was thought lost until pieces from surviving prints were re-assembled and the resurrected film was debuted in Toronto in 2009. Director Richard Oswald reused the idea with sound in 1932, jettisoning stories One, Two and Five, and adding another Poe title, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.”

The cinematographer in 1919 was Karl Hoffmann and the sets were designed by Julius Hahlo. Sets and costumes are not Expressionistic, but the acting style borders that of Expressionistic films. Or maybe it’s just tongue-in-cheek. 

The film is frequently described as “horror” but nothing in it is actually horrifying. Even in “The Black Cat” the corpse discovered by the police is left off screen. No, Eerie Tales is not horrific but it is, well, eerie. And that’s all it promises to be.