Sneha Girap (Editor)

The Bells (1918 film)

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
8
/
10
1
Votes
Alchetron
8
1 Ratings
100
90
81
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Rate This

Rate This

Duration
  

Language
  
Silent

Director
  
Ernest C. Warde

Country
  
USA


Release date
  
September 15, 1918 (1918-09-15)

Based on
  
The Bells  by Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

Writer
  
Alexandre Chatrian (play), Emile Erckmann (play), Gilson Willets, Jack Cunningham

We heard the bells the influenza of 1918


The Bells is a lost 1918 American silent drama film released by Pathé Exchange and based on the play, The Bells, by Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian. The play had been a favorite vehicle for actor Henry Irving.

Contents

This silent version stars Frank Keenan and Lois Wilson. The story was remade in 1926 as The Bells with Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff.

We heard the bells 1918 flu pandemic trailer


Plot

As reported in a film publication, Mathias, the struggling innkeeper in an Alsatian hamlet, murders a wealthy Jew who comes to spend a night at the inn in order to pay off debts and a mortgage.

The murderer is never discovered, but the season passes into local history as the "Polish Jew's winter." Mathias prospers, and years later his daughter becomes engaged to the captain of the gendarmes. Mathias prepares her dowry, and the sight of the gold coins brings again to his tortured conscience the ever-present sound of the sleigh-bells that heralded the approach of the ill-fated Jewish guest. In his sleep he dreams he is on trial and a hypnotist wrings a confession from him. In an ecstasy of fear he expires in the arms of his wife and daughter, the victim of Heaven's justice.

Cast

  • Frank Keenan as Mathias
  • Lois Wilson as Annette
  • Edward Coxen as Christian
  • Carl Stockdale as Gari
  • Albert R. Cody as Nickel
  • Joseph J. Dowling as Lisparre
  • Ida Lewis as Catherine
  • Burton Law as Koveski (credited as Bert Law)

    • Reception

    Like many American films of the time, The Bells was subject to cuts by city and state film censorship boards. For example, the Chicago Board of Censors required a cut, in Reel 2, of the two intertitles "The Crossroads, on murder bent" and "The murder in the snow", the theft of money belt, robbing body of money, and the intertitle "Destruction of the body in the lime kiln" and throwing the body into the kiln.

    References

    The Bells (1918 film) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA

    The Bells (1918 film) IMDb