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The Head of Janus (German: Der Januskopf) is a 1920 German horror silent film directed by F. W. Murnau. It was also reviewed at the time under the title Schrecken (Terror). The film was an unauthorized adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but the source material went unrecognized by some of the German media due to changes in the characters' names.[2] For example, the Jekyll-Hyde character was called Dr. Warren and Mr. O'Connor in the script. But that isn’t all the film is known for. It also features an early film role for future-Count Dracula Bela Lugosi as a variation of Poole, Dr. Jekyll’s butler in the book. Murnau would later make an unauthorized adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel two years later with Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.

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Der Januskopf
Directed by	F. W. Murnau
Written by	Robert Louis Stevenson (novel) Hans Janowitz (screenplay)
Produced by	Erich Pommer
Starring	Conrad Veidt Magnus Stifter Margarete Schlegel Willy Kaiser-Heyl Béla Lugosi
Cinematography	Karl Freund Carl Hoffmann Carl Weiss
Production companies	Lipow Film Company Decla-Bioscop
Distributed by	Decla-Bioscop
Release date	26 August 1920 (1920-08-26)
Running time	107 minutes [1]
Country	Weimar Republic
Languages	Silent film German intertitles

Released in August of 1920 by the Lipow Co., this is one of F.W. Murnau's lost films.[3] The screenplay was written by Hans Janowitz, who collaborated with Carl Mayer on the script for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). While the film itself no longer survives, the scripts and related production notes do. Because the film is lost, its full length is unknown (IMDb and FilmAffinity both list it at 107 minutes, however).

Plot

Conrad Veidt plays Dr. Warren (the Dr. Jekyll character) who changes into Mr. O'Connor (Mr. Hyde). This transformation is brought about, not by experimentation with chemicals as in Stevenson's novel, but through the supernatural agency of a bust of Janus (the Roman God of the Doorway), which Warren purchases in the opening sequence as a gift for his sweetheart, Jane Lanyon (Margarete Schlegel). When she refuses the gift, horrified, Warren is forced to keep the statuette himself.

It is at this point Dr. Warren first transforms into the gruesome Mr. O'Connor, and returns to Jane's house in a rage, kidnapping her and taking her back to his laboratory. Upon recovery, Warren is horrified by what he has done and tries to sell the bust at auction, but the hold it has over him forces him to buy it right back again.

A second transformation proves to be his ruin, causing him to commit random acts of violence in the streets. Ultimately, the fiend is forced to take poison after locking himself in his laboratory. He dies as Mr. O'Connor, clutching the statue to his chest.

Cast

• Conrad Veidt as Dr. Warren / Mr. O'Connor (Jekyll & Hyde)
• Béla Lugosi as Dr. Warren's Butler
• Magnus Stifter as Dr. Warren's friend
• Margarete Schlegel as Grace
• Margarete Kupfer as Jane Lanyon
• Willy Kaiser-Heyl
• Danny Guertler
• Gustav Botz
• Jaro Fürth
• Hans Lanser-Rudolf
• Marga Reuter
• Lanja Rudolph

Alternate titles

• Der Januskopf – Eine Tragödie am Rande der Wirklichkeit ("The Janus-Head – A Tragedy on the Border of Reality") (Germany)
• Love's Mockery
• Schrecken/ Terror (Germany) (trailer title)
• The Janus-Head
• Dr. Warren and Mr. O'Connor
• Terror (Soviet Union)

Production

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A note on the script points to an early instance of Murnau's moving camera. When the doctor is climbing the stairs to his laboratory, Janowitz's notes state "Camera follows him up the stairs".[4]

Reception

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This adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's classic novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was released in 1920, the same year as an American version, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde released by Paramount Pictures and starring John Barrymore. Swedish film critics of the time found the Murnau production to be more "artistic".^{[citation needed]}

See also

• List of films made in Weimar Germany
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 film)
• Béla Lugosi filmography
• List of lost films

References

Citations

• Hardy, Phil, ed. (1995), The Overlook Film Encyclopedia, vol. 3, Overlook Press, ISBN 0-87951-624-0

See also

• 1920 in science fiction

External links

• The Head of Janus at IMDb
• Der Januskopf at SilentEra
• The Head of Janus at AllMovie
• The Head of Janus at Rotten Tomatoes

На других языках

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- [en] The Head of Janus

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[ru] Голова Януса

«Голова Януса — трагедия на грани действительности» (нем. Der Januskopf – Eine Tragödie am Rand der Wirklichkeit, 1920) — немецкий немой художественный фильм, экспрессионистская философская драма режиссёра Фридриха Вильгельма Мурнау, вольная экранизация повести Роберта Льюиса Стивенсона «Странная история доктора Джекила и мистера Хайда». Фильм также известен под названиями «Двуликий Янус» и «Страх» (нем. Schrecken).

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