A miscast Glynis Johns stars as Jane Lindstrom, a Brit apparently vacationing in Southern California when her rented car has a flat in the middle of nowhere. Wandering for several hours, she finally makes her way to the home of the mysterious Caligari (Dan O'Herlihy). Though initially attracted to the Captain Nemo-esque figure, Jane soon realizes that he has no plans to let her leave his large estate, holding her captive along with several other eccentrics, including Ruth (Estelle Winwood) and Martin (J. Pat O'Malley). Frank (Lawrence Dobkin) and Christine (Constance Ford) are vaguely in league with Caligari, while young Mark (Richard Davalos) and fatherly Paul are clearly on Jane's side, yet they also have the freedom to come and go as they please.

The Cabinet of Caligari is a frustrating experience. The movie abounds in pretentiousness, trying to be a respectable thriller of mainstream appeal with heavily-lacquered, dime-store psycho-babble. It's self-consciously arty with attention grabbing freeze-frames, lap dissolves, weird angles, and stagy tracking shots, but these only draw attention to its artificialness. None of this appealed to mainstream moviegoers while horror fans were bored out of their skulls.

The dialogue might conceivably have worked in a novel, but on film it's stilted to the point of madness. Jane referring to Caligari's garden: "It isn't really darkness and dangers. This was made for children's eyes, and people who love each other." And to Caligari himself: "If the sunshine ever struck you, I believe you'd writhe! Yours is a dark world; mine is not." I'll bet audiences suckered into thinking this was going to be another Psycho did a little writhing themselves.

Nothing works, from the dialogue that never comes close to duplicating the way real people talk, to a surreal mental breakdown climax complete with distorted sets. Had Jane been an ordinary woman trying to make sense of this topsy-turvy environment it might have played better, but she's as phony as everything else. Much of the film hinges on a surprise so obvious and a resolution so predictable that few will be satisfied.

Most of the film was shot on a single, multi-level set representing the bulk of Caligari's house and the adjacent garden. It's vast and interesting but like everything else overdone. The film tries to cash in on Psycho in odd ways, such as having Glynis Johns spend a lot of time in her underwear as Janet Leigh had done. Sexual themes are bandied about with self-satisfied frankness, but like Psycho there's a long, pedantic coda at the end to help explain what it was all about.

Johns, often excellent in British comedies and dramas, is totally out of her element here, and was probably something like the 17th actress approached to play the lead. As Caligari, O'Herlihy is almost unrecognizable buried under a very fake beard and wig; only his (intentionally) emphasized Irish brogue gives him away (O'Caligari?).

The film was directed by Roger Kay, who had a long career in television (notably as a producer-director on The Untouchables) but made only a few films. He had little experience with fantastic material. After this he directed an episode of Twilight Zone called "Ninety Years Without Slumbering," but that wasn't any good, either.

Video & Audio

Presented in its original CinemaScope aspect ratio with 16:9 anamorphic enhancement, The Cabinet of Caligari at least looks very good; one suspects the original negative hasn't been touched much in the last 43 years. Despite being in CinemaScope and from Fox the DVD defaults to an English mono track. A stereo one is offered but it's not derived from a 4-track magnetic mix. A Spanish track is also available, along with Spanish and English subtitles. For those that want it a full-screen panned-and-scanned version is available on the flipside.

Extra Features

The lone supplement is a Trailer, in 16:9 anamorphic format complete with narration and text.**

Parting Thoughts

As bad as The Cabinet of Caligari is, this reviewer is still delighted to see it released in such fine form on DVD. It had all but disappeared since its release, and presented here in its original CinemaScope form is a treat. So here's hoping Fox continues cranking out other library titles of similar vintage and obscurity (The Hand of Death and Curse of the Fly to name two). The Cabinet of Caligari may not be a good movie, but its DVD debut is welcome nonetheless.

**(Warning: Spoiler) The trailer and Fox's marketing department erred in billing O'Herlihy as Caligari, when it would have been wiser to list him as the more recognizable role of Paul, and to keep the identity of the actor playing Caligari a secret.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf - The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune and Taschen's forthcoming Cinema Nippon. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.