THE BELLS

Adapted from the drama The Polish Jew, the title of James Young’s film recalls the poet Edgar Allan Poe’s book of the same name. The action, set in Alsace in 1868, is the story of a homicide and the remorse that follows it, with an innkeeper pursued by the spectre of a shopkeeper he murdered on Christmas night to steal his wealth. Visiting a fair, the innkeeper is particularly disturbed by the powers of a disturbing hypnotist, who is accompanied by a crippled assistant and a sleepwalker…
Boris Karloff and Lionel Barrymore are the main characters in this beautiful tribute to German expressionism and Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.