The Climax

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Movie
Original title The Climax
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1944
length 86 minutes
Rod
Director George Waggner
script Curt Siodmak
Lynn Starling
production George Waggner
music Edward Ward
camera Hal Mohr
W. Howard Greene
cut Russell F. Schoengarth
occupation

The Climax (in German: The climax ) is an American horror film from 1944 by George Waggner with Boris Karloff in the leading role. The story was based on a piece by Edward Locke.

action

Vienna, at the turn of the century. The theater doctor Dr. Friedrich Hohner once murdered his beloved, the opera singer Marcellina, out of jealousy, by squeezing her neck and at the same time destroying what always stood between the two: her singing voice as bright as a bell. Because Marcellina did not want to give up singing for the sake of Hohner in order to live by his side. When she said to the head that she would hate him, it was over to her and he strangled the young artist. Then he let her body disappear into his spacious house and kept it in a kind of cult room. Since that day, Marcellina has been considered lost in theater circles. His murder has slowly driven the embittered old doctor insane. Again and again he is drawn back to the crime scene, the royal theater, and over and over again he sees the same old pictures with “his” Marcellina in front of him.

Ten years later, Dr. Hohner in the theater from the piano room the voice of a young up-and-coming singer named Angela Klatt, which reminds him strongly of his dead lover. Hohner is upset that Angela, who is accompanied by the pianist Franz Munzer, is singing the very song that Marcellina once perfectly intoned. Opera director Graf Seebruck, however, is very enthusiastic about Angela's singing voice and wants to make her big with the next piece “The Magic Voice”. The premiere was promptly a great success, and Angela Klatt was celebrated as a great new discovery. “A new star is born” is the saying everywhere. Hohner is also fascinated by her voice and tells Angela about Marcellina and her unique opera voice. Bit by bit, Hohner initiates Angela into the life of the missing Marcellina. He even puts Marcellina's necklace on her and, in a moment of mental absence, simulates her strangulation. Even if Hohner seems a little strange, Angela is also fascinated by the strange theater doctor. Finally, Dr. Hohner Angela in hypnosis. In this state he tries to plant the will in Angela's subconscious never to want to sing again. From now on, Angela's voice should belong exclusively to Marcellina again. Hohner gives her a bottle of perfume, which should always remind her of Hohner's whisperings during hypnosis.

When Angela returns to Franz, who had been waiting for her the whole time after the glamorous premiere, she seems transformed. Her happiness is gone, she looks very serious. Franz, who loves her, is very worried about his great love. When Count Seebruck visits Angela at rehearsals, she doesn't utter a single note when Dr. Hohner appears and pierces her with his stare. Since she doesn't know what happened to her during the hypnosis, Angela is deeply desperate about her dropouts. Hohner is able to convince the other theater people that Angela needs absolute calm and that ideally within his own four walls. The premiere of “The Magic Voice” is now taking place without her, instead of Angela singing her greatest competitor Jarmila Vadek. From then on, Hohner hermetically shields Angela from the outside world, he throws Franz's letters to his girlfriend into the fire. Meanwhile, Franz uses a moment of Hohner's absence to finally get to Angela. With the help of Hohner's housekeeper Luise, Franz is able to free his Angelas from Hohner's clutches. When Hohner returns, he isn't too worried. Because his hypnosis works even in his absence, his influence on Angela seems unbroken.

Franz and the theater employee Carl are now beginning to think about Angela's changes, and Carl realizes that Angela's voice always fails when Hohner was around. With a trick, Carl and Franz managed to get the young king himself to arrange a royal performance of “The Magic Voice” in which Angela should sing. Franz hopes in this way to restore Angela's self-confidence. Immediately before the special screening, Dr. Hohner has access to Angela's room and insinuates with a threatening gesture that she really doesn't want to sing. The performance has already started when Carl and Franz want to check on Angela. But Hohner has disappeared with her and is planning bad things with her. He wants to silence Angela's voice forever. At the last moment, Franz and Carl storm into Hohner's house and save Angela from Hohner, who has already used the scalpel. While Franz returns to the theater with Angela, Carl holds Dr. Hohner in check with a revolver. He tries to keep Angela from singing from a distance by pure willpower. But she starts relieved on stage. In a moment of inattention, Hohner knocks Carl down and flees the theater. While Angela is striving towards her vocal climax in the performance, Hohner hurries into his house and locks himself in the room where he has laid out Marcellina's body for ten years. The police storm into the house. Then Hohner accidentally knocks over a stand with an open fire, which immediately sets everything on fire and burns the bodies of Hohner and Marcellina.

Production notes

The Climax was made in the Oscar- winning sets of the horror film classic Phantom of the Opera , which was made last year, and was originally conceived as a sequel to this film. Susanna Foster played the female lead in both films. It premiered on October 11, 1944 in Boston and San Francisco. The mass start took place nine days later. The strip was never shown in Germany.

In an original way, the film structures by John B. Goodman and Alexander Golitzen and the equipment by Russell A. Gausman and Ira S. Webb , although not designed for this film, were nominated for an Oscar for The Climax .

Vera West designed the costumes, Jack P. Pierce created the masks. John P. Fulton took care of the photographic special effects. Joseph Gershenson was anonymous as production manager.

Reviews

The Movie & Video Guide described the film as a "tight vehicle for Karloff".

Halliwell's Film Guide found the film to be "a gothic, romantic melodrama" that sought to capitalize on the previous film Phantom of the Opera . Summary: "Strangely engaging, with a good, rolling part for Karloff".

The New Yorker ruled in 1978 that the whole thing was "pretty intrepid, which is a bit of a handicap."

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 240
  2. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 206

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