The narrator of the film lays on a marble slab.What the frig! Completely random group of wacky characters assemble in a house and crazy things happen. This includes Bela Lugosi, who appears to have lost his uppers, and a dwarf who gets an elaborate introduction only never to be seen again! Story goes nowhere and some guy in a green mask hangs outside the living room window; nobody really notices. This is some screenwriting without discipline or purpose. I like to imagine it was typed out at 3AM in some low-rent Hollywood apartment.
Filmed in what they call "Natural Color" but which is actually Cinecolor, a subtractive colour process that gives everything, for lack of a more sophisticated description, a strange vintage look. It made me think of Autochromes, a very early development in colour photography, although that process is completely different - see below for an example. In any case, the effect of the Cinecolor may have been the only slightly spooky thing in the whole film. It was certainly a thrill to realize Lugosi had piercing blue eyes.
Director Christy Cabanne - not a woman, to my disappointment - was assistant to DW Griffith and went on to churn out myriad B-pictures.
Autochrome by the Czech photographer Bufka, taken ca. 1915.
