THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI
A Film in Six Acts Written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz
Decla-Film-Gesellschaft Berlin
Directed by Robert Wiene
Art Direction: Hermann Warm Walter Reimann, Walter Röhrig
Cast: Werner Krauss Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Fehér
Lil Dagover, Hans Heinz v. Twardowski, Rudolph Lettinger
Photographed by Willy Hameister
ACT I
There are spirits... They are all around us...
They have driven me from hearth and home,
from wife and child...
That is my fiancée...
What she and I have lived through is stranger still than what you have lived through...
I will tell you about it.
The little town where I was born...
The annual fair.
Him...
Alan, my friend.
SPECIAL EDITION: FAIR IN HOLSTENWALL -
FOR THE FIRST TIME ENTERTAINMENTS OF EVERY VARIETY
Come on, Franzis, let's go to the fair!
Don't go inside, the town clerk is in a vile temper today!
Wait!!!
I wish to apply for a permit to present my spectacle at the fair...
What kind of spectacle...?
A somnambulist.
Step rrrrright up! Presenting here for the first time...
Cesare, the Somnambulist!
END OF ACT I
ACT II
That night the first in a series of mysterious crimes took place.
Murder! The town clerk has been killed.
Stabbed in the side with a strange pointed instrument...
Step rrrrright in! Presenting here for the first time... Cesare the Somnambulist!
The miraculous Cesare...
twenty-three years old, he has slept for twenty-three years... Continuously...
Day and night...
Right before your eyes Cesare will awaken from his death-like trance...
Cesare! Can you hear me? Cesare, I am calling you...
I... Dr. Caligari... your master... Awaken for a moment from your dark night...
Ladies and gentlemen!
Cesare the Somnambulist will answer all your questions...
Cesare knows every secret...
Cesare knows the past and sees the future...
Judge for yourselves...
Don't hold back! Ask away...
How long will I live?
Till the break of dawn...
MURDER IN HOLSTENWALL 1000 MARKS REWARD
The way home.
Alan, we both love her...
We'll leave the choice up to her...
But whomever she chooses, we shall remain friends...
Night.
END OF ACT II
ACT III
Mr. Franzis... Mr. Franzis... Mr. Alan is dead... murdered.
The somnambulist's prophecy...?!
I won't rest until I get to the bottom of these dreadful deeds.
I will obtain police authorization to examine the somnambulist...
Murder... Help... Murder!
Wake him up!
SPECIAL EDITION: HOLSTENWALL MYSTERY SOLVED!
TWO-TIME MURDERER CAUGHT IN THIRD ATTEMPT!
END OF ACT III
ACT IV
Worried because her father has been away so long...
I had nothing to do with the two murders... So help me God...
The old woman... It's true... I tried to kill her...
by stabbing her in the side with a similar knife...
to throw suspicion on the mysterious murderer...
Is my father... Dr. Olfen here...?
After the funeral.
Night.
It couldn't have been Cesare...
He was asleep at the time... I've watched him for hours...
END OF ACT IV
ACT V
Is the prisoner secure in his cell...?
I must see him...
LUNATIC ASYLUM
Do you have a patient by the name of Dr. Caligari?
The director returned earlier today... Perhaps you should speak to him personally...
He... himself... and none other... is Caligari...
While the director, now placed under observation, is sleeping in his villa...
He's asleep.
SOMNAMBULISM
A Collected Edition by the University of Upsala
His specialty.
THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI.
In the year 1783, a mystic by the name of Caligari
toured the fairs of numerous villages in northern Italy,
accompanied by a somnambulist named Cesare.
...for months he sowed panic amongst village folks
through a series of foul murders committed under almost identical circumstances...
...he had entirely subjugated to his will a somnambulist named Cesare,
whom he did compel to carry out his nefarious schemes.
A puppet, the exact likeness of Cesare, and which took his place in a cabinet,
allowed him to divert any suspicion that might fall on the somnambulist.
My diary.
12 March... Finally... finally!
A somnambulist has been brought to the asylum for admission...
Afternoon - My desire... I shall be able to satisfy my life's unwavering wish...!
Now I shall unravel the psychiatric secrets of this Caligari!
Now I shall discover if it is true
that a somnambulist can be compelled to perform acts
that in a walking state he would never commit
and would be repugnant to him...
Whether it is true that a sleepwalker can be led to commit even murder...
An obsession.
I must know everything... I must penetrate his secrets. I must become Caligari...
YOU MUST BECOME CALIGARI
END OF ACT V
ACT VI
We found the sleepwalker out in the fields...
Mr. Director - unmask yourself. You are Dr. Caligari!
...and from that day on, the madman never again left his cell.
Look... there's Cesare... never allow him to tell your fortune, or you're dead...
Jane... I love you... won't you be my wife at last?
We queens are not free to answer the call of our heart...
You all think that - I'm insane!
It isn't true... It's the director who's insane!!
He is Caligari... Caligari... Caligari!
At last I understand his delusion. He thinks I am that mystic, Caligari...!
Now I know exactly how to cure him...
THE END