I have a new record for earliest-made movie on the countdown: a movie from 1920 that has been firmly established in the film world as one of the first and greatest horror films: the German Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. It's another silent film with a string soundtrack, and one thing I love right off the best are the neat dialogue frames, which look very unlike those normally seen with long serifed dashes and clear, English typefaces, but instead consisting of jagged letters placed upon starburst-style shapes mostly of shades of green.
The reference in the title is to The Somnambulist (a fancy word for "sleepwalker", from the roots somn meaning "sleep", as in somnolent or insomnia; and, ambul meaning "walk" as in amble or ambulatory, plus the suffix -ist meaning "doer". Didn't you love that vocabulary lesson?!). The Somnambulist is a sideshow of the title character who stays in a cabinet, and is touted to know all the past and the future. When a spectator asks him how long he will live (don't you know that you definitely don't want the actual answer to that question?), The Somnambulist tells him that he will be dead at dawn the next day. When he is murdered, it immediately prompts suspicion of the Doctor.
What follows is a brilliant psychological unraveling featuring another victim: a young woman, and her fiancés attempts to get her well and find the man responsible.
Score: 9/10
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