Avenging Conscience (Dvd) *New* B&W, Silent, and 11 similar items

Brand new factory sealed dvd is Out Of Print (OOP) in all formats and no longer being manufactured. Mastered in HD from a 35mm archive print. This adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's the 'Tell-Tale Heart' (with injections from the poem 'Annabel Lee') nevertheless stakes a fair claim as the horror cinema's first masterpiece. Henry B. Walthall plays a young man frustrated in love (for Blanche Sweet) by opposition from his tyranical uncle. Brooding over thoughts of murder, he is assailed by visions: Moses and the Ten Commandments, Christ on the Cross, but also a grisly little tableau in which a spider traps a fly in its web, and is then devoured in its turn by ants. Concluding that life "is a long system of murder", he duly kills his uncle and walls up the body. The editing is extremely effective as conscience takes hold -- with the ticking of a clock, the rythmic tapping of a policeman's shoe, the repeated cry of a bird, all echoing the tell-tale beating of the dead man's heart -- building to a superb crescendo as the murderer is assaulted by the nightmarish creatures of conscience. Using a veritible barage of special effects for the time like double exposures and framing devices that re-shape the screen space and supporting his narrative with a mosaic of Poe allusions, D.W. Griffith gives at least the semblance of psychological depth to his portrait of a murderer. The only dissapointment was the cop-out ending, still being used in movies today 110 years later! Also included is a short 7 minute film titled 'Edgar Allan Poe'. Both films are full frame, in Black and White of course, and they are silent as well. With some music only and probably subtitle cards in between shots as this was the norm for the era.