Crime and Punishment 1923 Silent

This 1923 silent film of Dostoyevsky's best known novel, "Crime and Punishment" tells a psychologically dramatic story in the German Expressionist style to which such heavy themes are well suited. In the 1920s, Germany became famous for its unique cinema style, using strong light and shadow contrasts, distorted angles and images, and intense emotive acting to convey emotions in a visual art form. One of the best known films of this style is the 1919 classic, "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari", directed by Robert Wiene, who also directed this film a few years later. There are certain similarities such as odd-shaped windows, strangely-slanting walls and doors, and the horrific theme of murder which is somehow very realistic even though not a single scene of the actual killing is shown. The main character is a disturbed man who is driven by his circumstances to believe that he is justified in ridding the world of an old female pawnbroker and her sister who intrudes just after the first murder. His mental anguish is expressed very well in the ensuing action as he feels the police investigations closing in on him, and the actor has a suitable face for the character he portrays so convincingly.These positive aspects of the film might outweigh the rather poor picture quality which often results in faces and hands appearing like white blurs except on close-ups, as well as the overall framing of the film causing the intertitles to be incomplete and difficult to read. Letters are missing on both sides, leaving the viewer to do a little guessing and puzzle work, but not so much that the overall meaning or plot would be lost. At least the classical music soundtrack accompanying this film is rather good, and does not detract too much from the essence of the story and the Expressionist style. This is a DVD perhaps best recommended only to silent cinema enthusiasts who appreciate the Expressionist style, at least until a restored and visually much improved version becomes available.

This collection is made up of half hour b&w crime oriented TV programs from the very early days of commercial TV. Except for Dragnet, I doubt if any but the most dedicated TV buff or historian ever heard of these short lived TV series. The programs were probably saved using the kinescope method--filming the program off a TV screen. The images are grainy and faded. Whatever good acting talent are in these shows is wasted on trite plots and bad writing. The price for this set is cheap enough. But your time and money is best used elsewhere.

thoug I have seen the remake of this movie I loved this orginal it was a movie that was movin and chilling for me I watched it at least three times already and plan to watch again and again.

When I read the Classic Illustrated version of this novel, the weight of guilt on the mind after committing a crime and how it affected your perceptions, speech and actions seemed to be the focus and weight of the story. Reading it made even the thought of committing a crime something you would hate to do knowing your conscience would knaw at you day and night. But this movie did not convey this key aspect of the very famous novel very well at all.Having said that, this was still a treat to watch and you get a full 87-minute movie, pretty good for 1923. It has English translation dialogue cards that are period; though bland, they are faithful to the original flavour of the rest of the movie, including the tint. Even more curious was the props and backdrops: very much like a piece of art throughout the entire picture. All the doors, windows, walls and lampposts were standing or set at crazy artsy queer angles...very much like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Though this was immediately apparent to me, I later noticed that the credit on the box is to the same director as the Caligari movie, so it's no coincidence.The music was quite suitable. The entire movie was in rust red tones...or perhaps they meant it to be blood red tones. They did not format the movie to ordinary TV screens so you had to guess some of the edge writing and in some cases the top line of wording was impossible to read, but you were able to get the story well enough. But this movie would look even blurrier on a HDTV screen. There were also some focusing problems with the camera so often the center of the picture was slightly out of focus. This might be the reason the key character's face and particularly his eyes were so often washed out. However there was an extraordinary shot where the background was blurry and the foreground in focus, then they brought the background into focus with the foreground seamlessly, I've no idea how they did that!?I'm not entirely sure how this movie would seem to someone not familiar with the book or Classic Illustrated as I was constantly comparing in my mind. But as a silent movie it was certainly interesting to watch if only for the crazy props, backdrops and unusual tinting. One person says this was a cheap 6th generation transfer... Perhaps we are spoiled by glitzy the productions of today's films, but I strongly suspect this was exactly how it looked in the original. I didn't find it bothersome at all as I'm quite used to watching the lesser quality production aspects common to silent era films, Indeed this aspect of the film I felt enhanced the artsie flavour of the movie. I would recomend it for the arty quality alone.

An excellent example of German Expressioninst cinema with a strong story (based on the Dostoyevsky novel of the same name) and the distinctive angular nightmarish sets similar to those in Weine's masterpiece "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari". Sadly the print has suffered with time and although not bad in terms of scratches it has developed a excessive contrast with faces appearing as white ovals at times devoid of facial details and all background detail lost. Despite this it is an important example of Expressionist cinema and welcome to have available on DVD.