Comfort Film presents

Silent Films on the Lawn

Waxworks (Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) 1924

With a live musical score by Max Clarke

In Partnership with the Goethe-Institut Chicago

Plot:
A wax museum owner employs a poet (William Dieterle) to create stories for his pieces. The poet dutifully pens disturbing tales, envisioning himself as a significant character in each story -- a baker sentenced to death by the Caliph of Baghdad (Emil Jannings), a Russian prince contending with the deadly paranoia of Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt) and a man who is pursued through the haunting streets of London by Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss).

Directed by
Paul Leni
Leo Birinski

Starring
Emil Jannings
Conrad Veidt
Werner Krauß
Wilhelm Dieterle

Media: Digital Projection
Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes
German with English intertitles.

Presented with the Goethe-Institut Chicago.

About Max Clarke
Max Clarke is a pianist who has performed in the Chicago area for nearly 10 years. Fluent in many genres, from Jazz and Classical to Rock and R&B, Max seeks to inhabit the liminal spaces of American musical traditions with a heavy emphasis on improvisation. Max’s performance will be a live quasi-improvised score for the film Waxworks (Das Wachsfigurenkabinett), which consists of a series of vignettes framed as the stories of the wax figure exhibits in a museum. Considered a prototype of horror cinema, Waxworks is one of German Expressionist director Paul Leni’s final German films before his emigration from Weimar Germany.

About the Goethe-Institut Chicago
The Goethe-Institut is the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institute, active worldwide. We promote the study of German abroad and encourage international cultural exchange.
https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/chi.html

Free out on the Comfort Station Lawn weather permitting.
If the screening has to be canceled there will be no make up date.

Programmed for Comfort Station by Raul Benitez, Emily Perez, Mat Tapey and Luna Lux.