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In 1920, one brilliant movie jolted the postwar masses and catapulted the German Expressionist film movement into history. That movie was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a plunge into the mind of insanity that severs all ties with the rational world. Director Robert Wiene and a team of visionary designers crafted a nightmare realm in which light, shadow and substance are abstracted, a world in which a demented doctor and a carnival sleepwalker perpetrate a series of ghastly murders in a small community.
this silent masterpiece has been called the first "cult" movie and the first horror film of genuine quality and substance.
a young student, francis (freidrich feher) encounters evil magician, dr. caligari (werner kraus), at a county fair. caligari's "act" consists of waking a frightening somnambulist, cesare, from the coffin where, it is claimed, he has lain asleep for years. when francis' best friend is murdered and a killing spree erupts in the small village, he suspects that caligari is using cesare to commit the ghastly crimes. when cesare is sent to murder the student's fiance, joan (lil dagover), he is so smitten with her beauty that he abducts her instead. francis tracks caligari to a nearby insane asylum where he is horrified to learn that the doctor is not an inmate but the director of the institution! the surprise ending is as shocking and perplexing today as it was when originally released.
Conrad Veidt