The Cabinet of Caligari (1962)

Robert Bloch’s screen credits include TV scripts for the series “Star Trek,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Night Gallery,” and “Boris Karloff’s Thriller,” and several screenplays, most notably for William Castle and Amicus Productions. I couldn’t begin to guess how many of his novels and short stories provided the basis for how many film, TV and radio adaptations, but the primary one is Psycho. He missed the opportunity to adapt his novel because an agent with MCA, looking to promote in-house talent, told Hitchcock that Bloch was unavailable, which wasn’t true.

You can’t turn out as many short stories, novels, radio/TV/movie scripts as Robert Bloch did without your foot slipping of the curb once in awhile. Such is the case with The Cabinet of Caligari, (Twentieth Century Fox, 1962) a re-imagining of the silent Expressionistic classic rather than a straight remake. The film has its supporters, but reading them is an exercise in tepid timidity, as if no one really likes the picture all that much, but no one wants to damn it, either.

Glynis Johns (probably best remembered as Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins) stars as Jane Lindstrom, a young woman who, at film’s beginning, is ripping along the highway in her sports car. The first shot is from her POV as the car moves through a tunnel and then emerges into the sunshine of the afternoon.  This “light at the end of the tunnel” motif hints at the plot, which the astute viewer familiar with the 1919 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will quickly realize.

Jane’s car blows a tire and she is forced to hike several miles along the road until she arrives at the home of the mysterious and sinister Caligari. He asks his female assistant Christine (Constance Ford) to see to the car. Christine takes a male worker with her to locate the vehicle. They are gone no longer than five minutes of screen time, representing a period of the same length for Jane and Caligari, and then Christine reenters to say that the car needs major repairs to the steering.  It took Jane hours to hike from the car to the house, but it takes Christine minutes to drive to the car, check it over for damage, and then return. Is this a major continuity error or is it a clue that all is not as it seems at Casa Caligari?

Jane stays the night, and then the next night, and soon realizes that neither she nor any of Caligari’s other guests can leave at will. Her host has now become a full-time villain, torturing her with embarrassing questions and even allowing another assistant, David (Lawrence Dobkin) to use a cane to beat an elderly guest (Estelle Winwood) to death.

Jane’s only comfort comes from Martin (J. Pat O’Malley), a genial guest, Mark (Richard Davalos) a young guest for whom she develops an attraction, and wise, kindly Paul (Dan O’Herlihy), who finally admits that Caligari is his patient.

Jane’s escape attempts are blocked at every turn. As she grows more panicked, the odd angles of the house are accentuated and the lighting grows more shadowy. Every move comes weighted with sinister meaning. After Jane discovers the real identity of Caligari and the nature of his relationship with Paul, the film speeds to a hasty conclusion that is risibly naïve.

The director, TV veteran Roger Kay, has ambitions beyond his capability to realize them, and Robert Bloch’s screenplay is an obvious attempt to mine the Psycho mother lode one more time. It’s only fair to note that Psycho was not Bloch’s first journey to Wackyland. His first novel, The Scarf in 1947, was a psycho serial killer tale, and one of his best short stories, “Lucy Comes to Stay,” was also in that genre. If you ever come across his story “Final Performance,” perhaps the ultimate crazy killer yarn, you won’t soon forget it.

If Cabinet of Caligari is a valiant effort in a losing cause, Bloch stepped up to the plate again two years later and slammed out a more recognizably Blochian script for that wonderful ham, William Castle, and the rapidly failing one-time star Joan Crawford. The film was Strait-Jacket (Columbia, 1964).