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Dream Quest, v. 1, issue 1, July 1947

Page 14

-14-
DREAM COME TRUE
by Forest J Ackerman
MOST OF YOU have heard of "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari," the celebrated German fantastic film. I have seen it revived on several occasions. But never had I seen an exclusive successor to it, another imaginative movie made in 1924 -- WAXWORKS. "Waxworks" starred the two principals of "Caligari," Conrad Veidt & Werner Krause. Students of cinema as an art generally find references to, perhaps a still from, "Waxworks" in books on the subject of the screen's history.
RECENTLY I saw for the firstime, this nearly quarter of a century old fantastic film. Rather, I saw what's left of it. From what is reputed to be the only print extant in the USA, one entire sequence -- presumably a third of the picture--is missing. This concerns the comings and gorings of Jack-the-Ripper (in the picture referred to as Spring-Heel Jack).
"WAXWORKS" preceded by 20 years the "Flesh & Fantasy" sort of sequence film. It opened on a notice in a newspaper advertising for a writer capable of creating imaginative stories. The young man who answers finds himself in a Chamber of Horrors, whose proprietor wishes his macabre museum publicized. As the author dreams up descriptions of what each wax figure did in real life, the realistic dummies' biographies are dramatized.
IVAN THE TERRIBLE, portrayed by Conrad "Caligari" Veidt, is a Rasputinish appearing rascal with a penchant for poison. He takes a perverted delight in visiting his dungeons and mocking the men he has sentenced to death by placing a sand clock before their eyes and observing their agonies as time runs out for them. The descent into the hellpits of torture were rather on the shuddery side. In the end, Ivan believes he has become a victim of his own poison-mixer, and goes insane, turning a sand clock feverishly back and forth all the rest of his days, never allowing the grains to run completely out of the top globe. Several strange sets in this sequence.
PART TWO had Emil Jannings portraying a Caliph of old who possessed a ring of magic properties. To prove his manhood to his sweetheart, a poor young lover swore to steal into the Caliph's palace and seize the ring. When his good fortune apparently brought him upon the Caliph asleep, he hacked off his victim's hand and fled with it with the ring still on the severed member. Unknown to him, the sleeping Caliph was in actuality a dummy, and the ring an impotent duplicate. The caliph, in the meantime, was calling on the young man's sweetheart!
AN EXCITING CHASE thru Caligarian corridors and spiraling staircases ensues, as the thief is spied by the Caliph's guards. There is a weird damn thing of him being trapped atop a curious cupola and escaping a la Douglas Fairbanks Sr by a leap to the top of a rubbery tree which bends to ground beneath his weight.
WHEN THE HERO arrives breathless at his sweetheart's door and starts pounding it down (the Caliph had locked it to prevent interruption of his anticipated love-making the Caliph hastily hides. The lover bursts in, the guards hot in pursuit, with the horrifying revelation that he has
((Continued on page 50))

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-14- DREAM COME TRUE by Forest J Ackerman MOST OF YOU have heard of "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari," the celebrated German fantastic film. I have seen it revived on several occasions. But never had I seen an exclusive successor to it, another imaginative movie made in 1924 -- WAXWORKS. "Waxworks" starred the two principals of "Caligari," Conrad Veidt & Werner Krause. Students of cinema as an art generally find references to, perhaps a still from, "Waxworks" in books on the subject of the screen's history. RECENTLY I saw for the firstime, this nearly quarter of a century old fantastic film. Rather, I saw what's left of it. From what is reputed to be the only print extant in the USA, one entire sequence -- presumably a third of the picture--is missing. This concerns the comings and gorings of Jack-the-Ripper (in the picture referred to as Spring-Heel Jack). "WAXWORKS" preceded by 20 years the "Flesh & Fantasy" sort of sequence film. It opened on a notice in a newspaper advertising for a writer capable of creating imaginative stories. The young man who answers finds himself in a Chamber of Horrors, whose proprietor wishes his macabre museum publicized. As the author dreams up descriptions of what each wax figure did in real life, the realistic dummies' biographies are dramatized. IVAN THE TERRIBLE, portrayed by Conrad "Caligari" Veidt, is a Rasputinish appearing rascal with a penchant for poison. He takes a perverted delight in visiting his dungeons and mocking the men he has sentenced to death by placing a sand clock before their eyes and observing their agonies as time runs out for them. The descent into the hellpits of torture were rather on the shuddery side. In the end, Ivan believes he has become a victim of his own poison-mixer, and goes insane, turning a sand clock feverishly back and forth all the rest of his days, never allowing the grains to run completely out of the top globe. Several strange sets in this sequence. PART TWO had Emil Jannings portraying a Caliph of old who possessed a ring of magic properties. To prove his manhood to his sweetheart, a poor young lover swore to steal into the Caliph's palace and seize the ring. When his good fortune apparently brought him upon the Caliph asleep, he hacked off his victim's hand and fled with it with the ring still on the severed member. Unknown to him, the sleeping Caliph was in actuality a dummy, and the ring an impotent duplicate. The caliph, in the meantime, was calling on the young man's sweetheart! AN EXCITING CHASE thru Caligarian corridors and spiraling staircases ensues, as the thief is spied by the Caliph's guards. There is a weird damn thing of him being trapped atop a curious cupola and escaping a la Douglas Fairbanks Sr by a leap to the top of a rubbery tree which bends to ground beneath his weight. WHEN THE HERO arrives breathless at his sweetheart's door and starts pounding it down (the Caliph had locked it to prevent interruption of his anticipated love-making the Caliph hastily hides. The lover bursts in, the guards hot in pursuit, with the horrifying revelation that he has ((Continued on page 50))