The Headless Man (1916)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The man without a head |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1916 |
| length | approx. 60 (1920) minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Louis Neher |
| production | David Oliver |
| occupation | |
| |
Der Mann ohne Kopf is a German horror and crime silent film from 1916 with Max Landa in the leading role.
action
The criminalist Dr. Nemo receives a letter from the landowner Jan von Richter in which he asks for his help. Four years ago Richter's older brother, the former owner of the manorial estate in the moor, had died under mysterious circumstances. A murder was assumed, but the perpetrator was never caught. A few days ago, reported von Richter, shortly after midnight a ghost without a head was seen in the inaccessible moor, which was exactly the shape of the dead man. During this eerie encounter, the ghost stopped for a moment, stretched a threatening hand in the direction of the manor house, and then disappeared again. This process, writes von Richter, has been repeated every night since then.
Dr. Nemo finds this case extremely interesting and immediately goes to the moor. Together with Richter and his estate inspector Glöver, he lies in wait at the relevant time. Indeed, the headless mind appears. Nemo doesn't think it's a good idea to follow the white linen in the middle of the night through the unknown and allegedly inaccessible bog and decides not to become active until the next day. With his friend Huller's zeppelin , he circled the relevant section of the moor to find out whether there wasn't a secret path in it. In fact, you spot stones marking a small path, and Dr. Nemo rappels from the airship right there. He recognizes that the stones were marked with a substance containing phosphorus that glow at night. Nemo then goes to the local drugstore and asks if anyone has recently bought large amounts of phosphorus. The drugstore says no, but through his facial expressions the detective realizes that the man is lying. Nemo sets a trap for him and calls the drug store later. He orders the usual amount of phosphorus to be delivered to the known home address. Then he follows the delivery and finds out where the “ghost” lives.
Criminalist Nemo is amazed, because the recipient comes from the same trade as him and is a private detective by the name of Platt. That gentleman was once involved in the investigation into the murder of von Richter's brother. Contrary to expectations, Nemo received a letter from the “ghost” shortly afterwards, which stated that it wanted to stop its nightly haunted activities. Nemo doesn't believe that the case has already been resolved and pretends to be an accident that forces him to leave. He asks the landlord of Richter to keep his eyes and ears open and to see if the ghost will really escape. Richter and Glöver lie in wait and observe a very strange process. First the ghost appears, then a second one that pursues the first and finally catches it. Together, the two ghosts set out on solid ground behind the moor. In fact, Detective Platt is exposed as the real ghost, while Nemo appears under the second sheet. In this way he wanted to capture the nightly child fright in white.
Platt says that he undertook the spook in order to unsettle and frighten the murderer of Richter's brother, whom he still suspects to be in the area. Because after four years of looking for a murderer, he did not get one step further conventionally. In fact, Platt had designed his nightly activities very cleverly: if the outside of his cloak was snow-white, he could turn it around in a flash. The black inside, now turned outwards, made the ghost disappear from one second to the next in the deeply dark night before the eyes of the observer. Suddenly the disappearance of the valet Christian is reported. He left a message that his old, dead master was calling him. He always hit him and he hit back then. Now he wants to follow his master into the swamp. Armed with torches, everyone present goes into the swamp, but they find no trace of the missing person.
The next morning, Detective Platt brings one of the servant's hats, which the estate inspector claims to have found on the edge of the swamp. Nemo immediately notices that the headgear is surprisingly dry for being picked up in a wetland and it rained the previous night. Also, the writing on the letter does not match that of the servant. Nemo combines that Christian is neither dead nor the perpetrator, and that the real murderer is merely using the house servant as a scapegoat. While talking to Platt, Nemo hears a noise at the door and rushes to the same. Behind it is the housemaid Marie, who had been listening. She runs away from Nemo, he after her. When he arrived in her room, he also found Christian there, who was hiding in a box. Finally, Marie confesses that she knows who the killer is. She is engaged to Gutsinspektor Glöver. He killed the previous owner of the estate in a fit of jealousy when Judge Marie, who was now dead, approached in an obtrusive manner. With this knowledge, Dr. Nemo to Jan von Richter, at whose side Glöver is. Nemo explains from Richter that the case has now been resolved and that the killer is standing next to him. Glöver, suspecting that only Marie could have betrayed him, wants to pounce on her. But Nemo intervenes and has the culprit led away.
Production notes
The man without a head was created in the Oliver Film Atelier in Berlin's Lindenstrasse 32–34. The four-act act with a length of 1228 meters passed the film censorship in October 1916, was banned from young people and was probably premiered that same year.
The National Airplane Works in Berlin-Johannisthal provided two airplanes for the shooting, with which the aerobatic pilot Helene Ballot made the aerial shots possible.
Reviews
"An interesting crime drama, well performed and presented."
Paimann's film lists summed up: "Interesting material, photos and game ... very good."
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Der Mann ohne Kopf In: Kinematographische Rundschau of October 8, 1916. S. 188
- ↑ The man without a head ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Paimann's film lists
