Audience Member
Unheimliche Geschichten was made by Richard Oswald, the director of a hundred or more movies, including the 1917 adaption of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
This definitely has an interesting connecting story, as a demon, a reaper and the ghost of a prostitute read several short stories. Yes, Death, the Devil and the Harlot literally step out of a painting in a bookstore to start the movie.
"The Apparition" — based on the story by Anselm Heine — tells the story of a man (Conrad Viedt, who also plays Death) checking into a hotel with a woman (Anita Berber, who is the Harlot) who vanishes. No one will admit that she was ever there, nearly driving the man insane. In "The Hand," based on the Robert Liebmann tale, two men — Veidt and Reinhold Schünzel, who plays the devil — engage in a duel that continues past one man's death. "The Black Cat" is the Poe story, with Schunzel murdering his wife (Berber) and walling her up. In the film's take on Robert Lewis Stevenson's "The Suicide Club" is about a detective who tracks down a secret society just as they pick him as their next victim. Finally, "The Spectre," written by Oswald, is about a rich man (Veidt) who pushes his wife (Berber) into an affair.
At one a.m., Death, the Devil and the Harlot return back to their respect paintings, ending Eerie Tales.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Unheimliche Geschichten has a variety of English translations. These also include Eerie Tales, and Tales of the Uncanny. The film is an anthology or omnibus production, consisting of five different stories. These are The Apparition, The Hand, The Black Cat (based on another Poe short story), The Suicide Club (based on a Robert Louis Stevenson short story), and The Spectre, which was actually written by director Richard Oswald. Uncanny Stories starred Conrad Veidt (more about him coming soon, kids…), and would later be re-made with sound by the same director in 1932. In an old bookstore in the middle of the night, three paintings come to life. The Devil, Death, and a "harlot" step out and read the stories that are then enacted onscreen. Some hallucinatory images are achieved, including a Mr. Hyde-like character plaguing Veidt in The Apparition, which also includes a hotel room completely torn apart and re-built, and a black-shrouded hearse carrying away the body of the plague victim who died in the room. The Hand, though nightmarish in its storyline of a murder victim taking revenge upon his killer, is hampered by the lack of special effects available at the time. The Black Cat is set in the proper time period reflective of Poe and emphasizes the film's three-way love/hate triangles between Veidt and the two other principle actors, Anita Berber and Reinhold Schünzel. As Veidt hacks away at a cellar wall, Poe's ending plays out well. The Suicide Club is a rather improbable premise that fails because it lacks true scares. In The Spectre, (I always liked that name and even titled my first rock band "Spectre") a would-be couple is plagued by ghostly phenomena and black-hooded men – all devised by the husband – which scares off the lover and helps the wife realize that she is already with the most intelligent and creative man she could ever find. The film ends with the bookstore owner frightened by the three paintings, which come to life a final time to taunt him. Unheimliche Geschichten offers a lot of humor amidst its eeriness, proven by the director's career, which was not primarily in horror.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Anita Berber, Reinhold Schünzel und Conrad Veidt in einem Episodenfilm, in dem weniger Gewicht auf die Handlung, als auf den künstlerischen Ausdruck und die Darstellung gelegt wird.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
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