Seven Footprints to Satan

Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Very good and creepy film from director Benjamin Christensen about a couple (Thelma Todd, Creighton Hale) who are kidnapped and taken to an old dark house ran by Satan. Inside the house the two are terrorized by a dwarf (Angelo Rossitto of Freaks fame), a gorilla, an ape man like creature and other weirdos. The atmosphere of this film is so incredibly thick that you'll actually feel as if you're walking among all of these characters. There are several creepy moments as the couple walk around this house, which just has one weird room after another. The film isn't as great as the director's Haxan but it's still among the best of its genre. The set design is terrific and the editing is among some of the best I've seen from this period. You easy to see that this film influenced Universal's Dracula, Paramount's Island of Lost Souls and some of the orgy scene from Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut appears to have been influenced by this film.

A young man longing for adventure end up in the middle of a robbery and trapped in castle like home where some very strange people are wandering about. It all builds as all the "old dark house" conventions are played up to the max before it ends in a manner that is both logically right and completely wrong. I dare not say anything else since this is such fun to watch.

Benjamin Christensen's Seven Footprints to Satan was thought lost for years. During that time it gained a reputation as one of the great films. Thankfully the re-emergence of an Italian titled print proves that Christensen had indeed made what is probably one of the greatest "old dark house" thrillers ever made.

This movie is a blast. There are hooded villains, sliding panels, dwarfs,half humans, gorillas, weirdly shaped people and a sense of fun lacking from many movies of this type. Its a damn near perfect blueprint of how to make a movie like this. The film is also an absolute masterpiece of the directors art. I've never/rarely seen a film that is such a marriage of image and story with camera moves that pure genius. This is a film to study if you want to see how to make a movie.

The movie as it stands has two problems. First the title cards are in Italian, which makes watching it difficult if you don't read the language. I don't. Only after reading a synopsis of the entire plot was I able to really enjoy the madness that was going on on screen. The other problem is that this film is silent. I had always thought it was purely a silent film, however the entries on IMDb and my watching of the film make me think that perhaps part of this was indeed sound. There are sequences that contain a great deal of on screen talking and very little titling which lead me to think there once was more to this film than there is now.

See this movie. This is a masterpiece. Its also a lot of fun.

Now if someone like Criterion or Kino could get their hands on this and set about restoring it we'd all be so much richer.

This is one of those Silent horror films I thought I'd only get to read about in reference books, as it was considered lost – until an Italian print, albeit extremely faded, eventually surfaced. Actually, the version I watched has been renamed Satan'S STAIRWELL – which I assume is a literal translation of the film's Italian title – while the intertitles themselves have been translated back into English (and which tend to remain on screen for an inordinate length of time)! Of course, one is happy to take such rare films in any form they may come…

Typical of many latter-day Silents, the horror element here is mingled with intermittent doses of comedy – though not so much as in, say, THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927), with which it shares leading man Creighton Hale in a similar role; he's partnered in this case with the popular and tragic Thelma Todd, who comes off somewhat better than Laura La Plante from the earlier film (from the cast, I also recognized Sojin and the ubiquitous Angelo Rossitto – but had no idea that 'The Spider' was played by Sheldon Lewis, who had over-acted so horrendously in the rival 1920 version to the John Barrymore DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE). Also, like THE CAT AND THE CANARY, Christensen's film boasts a very striking visual style highlighted by inventive – and impressive – art direction, camera-work (simulating, for instance, the motion of going up the various floors of the main 'haunted house' set), lighting and editing (at one point, a door opening is quickly followed by a succession of gunshots, only to be revealed as the hero engaged in target practice).

What makes the film unique, perhaps, is its relentless parade of grotesques (a dwarf, a gorilla, a pock-marked cripple, an ape-man, a sinister Oriental, an androgynous servant, etc.) and assorted maidens (either scantily-clad hostages or perverted followers of a satanic cult); all of this gives the film a creepy overall tone which is not easy to shake off and has seldom been replicated with such gusto: the climactic orgy is downright chilling – a veritable Pre-Code moment – with its suggestive flagellation (anticipating a famous scene in THE SIGN OF THE CROSS [1932]) and satanic audience (though the Devil himself is depicted as nothing more scary than a mysterious figure in a hood!). Which brings us to the cop-out ending that's moralistic (in a good-natured way) but not really unexpected for a horror film of its time (think London AFTER MIDNIGHT [1927]) and, in any case, shouldn't be seen as too much of a let-down considering just how satisfying – and immensely enjoyable – the lead-up to it has been!

In conclusion, I wanted to comment on Christensen's Hollywood career: one may think it a shame that he seems to have gotten stuck in the 'old dark house' subgenre – what with his having directed two more of those, THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1928) and HOUSE OF HORROR (1929), both also featuring Todd and both of which, unfortunately cannot be assessed due to unavailability – but, the fact remains that he seriously bungled his one chance at working with the great Lon Chaney on the hoary and ill-suited Russian Revolution melodrama, MOCKERY (1927). However, while his work may have been overshadowed by that of other European directors employed in Hollywood during the final days of the Silent era, this viewing of SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO Satan more than restores his reputation as a visual stylist and someday I would love to be able to check out his only remaining surviving film, the intriguing THE DEVIL'S CIRCUS (1926)

I very much enjoyed watching this film recently. After so many years of reading about it, looking for it, etc., I was not at all disappointed as I so often am ("L'Atlantide" ["Mistress of Atlantis"] comes to mind).

This is an old-dark-house movie. A young couple creep around a weird mansion said to be run by Satan, where they run from and into one after another of an ill-assorted crew: a lady in distress, an ape, an ape-man, a midget, various odd-looking people, and (for some reason) two Chinese. They end up in a throne room where the hero is required to play a "Price Is Right" sort of contest involving a climb up seven steps with seven illuminated footprints; hence the title. For my taste it's too much of the same thing. The creeping around fun-house corridors is amusing for a while, then becomes repetitive. By comparison with Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton or Laurel and Hardy doing the same bit in two reels, it isn't truly funny. It's not frightening either, and apparently wasn't intended to be: the household is too absurd. Most films in this genre balance the comedy with a genuine threat, and usually two--one that the characters are led to believe is real, and another for which it's a cover. Here the cover isn't to be taken seriously, and neither is what covered. A few moments of fun emerge from the mix, but it's rather heavy fun. The novel on which the film was based was a straight thriller and I think could have been played straight to better effect--and still could be.