Metro-Goldwyn
Directed by Rex Ingram
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)
Parisian sculptor Alice Terry falls under the spell of scientist and hypnotist Dr. Haddo, played by Paul Wegener. She marries him after a short time, much to the chagrin of her real fiance, an American surgeon. Haddo brings her to his remote castle near Monte Carlo, a gothic "sorcerer's tower" on a lonely mountaintop. He plans to murder her in order to complete his plans to create life via an ancient alchemist formula which calls for the "heart's blood" of a maiden. Her fiance shows up at the last second to save her. The best scenes involve Dr. Haddo, especially an early vision of Hell which he uses to seduce the girl, and the later scenes in the castle. These were obviously influenced by the recent German films and compare favorably. The rest of the film, however, is a rather routine melodrama, which the film itself even admits to in an early aside.
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