Classic Horrors Club

There are at least a dozen films named, “Destiny,” over a third of them silent. Not that you’d have any trouble finding the “right” one, but just be sure you’re getting the one from 1921, directed in Germany by Fritz Lang. None of the subsequent films are remakes of this one; it’s a singular sensation. And sensational it is.

Destiny had an impact on filmmaking. Douglas Fairbanks secured the rights to it so he could replicate the flying carpet effects for The Thief of Baghdad (1924.) Luis Bunuel’s (Un chien andalou, 1929) entire career was inspired by it. The character of death in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) was influenced by it. And, depending on your source, Alfred Hitchcock was either impressed by it, or it was his favorite film.

Although subtitled, “A German Folk Song in Six Verses,” on the surface there’s not much German about it. The three stories within a story take place in the Middle East, Venice, and China. Yet they all tell a similar tale of doomed love and in each one, the same actors play the young couple. Lil Dagover (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920) is the woman, Walter Janssen is the man.

Bernhard Goetzke also does quintuple duty as each of the men who take someone’s life before phasing into the imposing figure of Death himself. Walking into the scene down a dusty road in his wide-brimmed hat and dark robe, Death first reminded me of Chakan, the Forever Man, a character that I remember from the box cover of an old Sega Genesis game, then Kane, the insane preacher from Poltergeist II: The Other Side.

This is Death with a generous dose of Barnabas Collins mixed into his psyche. He’s grown weary from his task, which he considers a curse. This makes him somewhat receptive to “Young Woman’s” pleas to return her lover, “Young Man,” to a life that was taken from him (and her) unexpectedly. However, his willingness to show compassion has strings attached.

Each of the three aforementioned stories within a story are tied to a candle that is burning toward its end. I don’t know how she would do it, but if she can save even one of the men from meeting his fate, he will release Young Man. The title, Destiny, hints that their final outcomes are predetermined and there’s nothing Young Woman can do to change them.

In a sense, the three verses are a just a clever narrative novelty. Destiny became really interesting to me with the final verse when Death gives Young Woman one final chance. If she can bring him someone in Young Man’s place within an hour, he will grant her his life. This becomes not so much a race against time, but a test of Young Woman’s nature and how far she is truly willing to go.

Likewise, the first two verses are perhaps more interesting than three through five. In the first, Death climbs into the carriage taking the young couple into town. He follows them into the Golden Unicorn Inn, where we have just heard (read) the backstory of Death as a stranger who appeared in town and bought land adjacent to the cemetery, building a giant wall around it.

When Death disappears with Young Man, the second verse is about Young Woman searching for him. While no one has been able to find the gate leading inside the giant wall, she does, and she meets Death halfway up a seemingly endless staircase and begins her pleas. In a beautiful scene, he leads her through a space filled with candles taller than they are.

The stories of the first, second, and third verses have slightly different tragic tones. The third is humorous and filled with special effects. This is where a magic carpet takes a great magician and the young couple to the emperor who has requested to be entertained on his birthday. A jade wand conjures a tiny army, grows a flying horse from a toy, and, in the hands of the woman, turns the lascivious emperor into a miserable, ugly cactus.

With some similar themes, I’m not quite as fond of Destiny as I am The Phantom Carriage (same year, different country), but I thoroughly enjoyed it and was captivated for it’s nearly 100-minute running time. One recommendation is to be alert and pay attention; there are a lot of long intertitles, making this silent film a sort of talky one.