A poet is hired by the owner of a wax museum in a circus to write tales about Harun al Raschid, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. While writing, the poet and the daughter of the owner, Eva, fantasize the fantastic stories and fall in love for each other.
Direction
Leni's twisted angles invented horror grammar.
Production
Sets so stylized they practically sweat anxiety.
Acting
Veidt's Ivan: eyeballs as performance art.
Director
Leo Birinski
Emil Jannings
Harun al Raschid
Conrad Veidt
Ivan the Terrible
William Dieterle
The Poet / Assad the Baker / Russian Prince
Werner Krauss
Jack the Ripper / Spring-Heeled Jack
Olga Belajeff
Eva-Maimune-Eine Bojarin
John Gottowt
Owner of the Waxworks
Georg John
Owner of the Panoptikums
Ernst Legal
Poison-Maker of the Czar
Paul Biensfeldt
Grand Vizier
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Paul Leni's last German film before Hollywood poached him for The Man Who Laughs. Germany's loss, Lon Chaney's gain.
The caliph sequence's Orientalist fantasy is peak 1920s exoticism—gorgeous, problematic, and absolutely intentional escapism from Weimar economic despair.
DE
