Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The, German motion picture about several murders that happen in a small town shortly after a travelling carnival act arrives. Until this silent film was released in 1919, most films used realistic sets. The designers for this movie attempted to show the world the way a severely deranged person sees it—the sets are full of distorted angles and exaggerated perspectives, which were typical techniques of the German Expressionist school of painting during that era. A young man named Francis (played by Friedrich Feher) narrates the story. Francis and his friend Alan (Hans Heinz von Twardowski) go to see Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) at the carnival, where the doctor’s sleepwalking assistant Cesare (Conrad Veidt) predicts that Alan will die before dawn. Alan is murdered in the night, and in the days that follow, a series of other townspeople are murdered. Francis begins to suspect that Caligari is involved. After Cesare kidnaps Francis’s girlfriend (Lil Dagover), Francis and the townspeople track Caligari to a mental institution. However, it turns out that Francis has been narrating from inside a mental institution, and it is hard to tell whether the story he tells is true or the ravings of an insane man.

Alternate Title

• Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari

Director

• Robert Wiene

Cast

• Werner Krauss (Dr. Caligari)
• Conrad Veidt (Cesare)
• Friedrich Feher (Francis)
• Lil Dagover (Jane)
• Hans Heinz von Twardowski (Alan)
• Rudolf Lettinger (Dr. Olson)
• Rudolf Klein-Rogge (Criminal)

Quote

• Opening title card: “A TALE of the modern reappearance of an 11th century myth involving the strange and mysterious influence of a mountebank monk over a somnambulist.”