Dante's Inferno

A selfish businessman has been consumed with the sins that will throw him to hell. He allows his tenants in his ramshackle tenement houses suffer in unsafe living conditions with no remorse. When a demon shows him what hell is like and offers him a chance to save his soul, the businessman is faced with a choice, but old habits die hard.

Although Dante's Inferno has some great visuals, the story lacks, and therefore makes this curiosity quite disappointing. This was one of the most exciting names on the list for Cinevent 41, and I was underwhelmed by it. The red tinting and the writhing bodies are powerful at first sight, but the narration dwells too much on the details of each level of hell. Maybe this is uninteresting to modern audiences who have been saturated with so many different varieties of what hell might be like that we're numb to the older renditions. Whatever the reason, it is not effective.

It is worthwhile to note that the black characters are played by white men in black-face. This choice is more startling today than it must have been when the film was originally released, but it serves as a reminder of the change in the times.

This film intertwines the imagery from Dante's famous story and a modern morality tale that plays off of the depictions of hell. Cecil B. DeMille perfected this combination in The Ten Commandments a year earlier. In comparison, Dante's Inferno falls flat.

It may not be possible to bring the Inferno to the screen: too much depends on Dante's poetry, not to mention familiarity with all of the classical and contemporary references that mean so much to the poet's journey. But the people who made this film didn't even try; instead, they gave us a version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, with a little diluted Sinclair Lewis thrown in, relocated in 1920's America. Yes we do get some scenes from the Inferno, but all the drama of the original has been drained from them: the lustful appear to be merely lounging around in a reddish scene, instead of being caught up in a whirlwind, while the suicides are now thorny bushes with heads, which simply look ridiculous.

But the question remains: could we do better with modern special effects? The danger is that the effects could be too good--Bertran de Born swinging his head like a lantern, Mohammed and the other schismatics split nearly in half, suicides turned into brambles, thieves turned into lizards--leaving the impression that the Inferno is just a series of freak shows, and giving too little importance to the transformation of Dante as he journeys through Hell. Good luck to anyone who tries.

One of a number of 'high brow' pictures made at the time, a simplistic morality tale is used to frame parts of hell as described by Dante and illustrated by Gustav Dore.

Mainly of interest for the production design of hell, which seems like a giant factory. The semi-nude bodies of the sinners caused censorship problems at the time.

I saw the New York Museum of Modern Art print, which seems to be missing at least twenty percent, supposedly mostly scenes of hell.

A preamble from the filmmakers describing Dante Alighieri's 'Inferno' with reference to "vivid realism" raises a profoundly skeptical eyebrow; whether they intend the easily mocked pretension of "fire and brimstone" preaching or simple dramatic flourishes, the movie proper hasn't even begun and it seems to have aged poorly. Mind you, the concept of the picture is just fine, plainly stirring together the morality tale of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas carol' with the stark imagery of Dante's vision of Hell. The broad strokes of the plot are quite suitable; Mortimer Judd is even more of a villain than Ebenezer Scrooge, and perhaps more easily compared to the average conservative politician and über-rich businessperson in 2023 than a figure of another eighty years' past. But then, too, while this is hardly the only title to employ such an indelicacy, there's also no mistaking the use of blackface here. This is to say nothing of the broad, unsubtle forthrightness of the story as it presents. Not even a quarter of the runtime has passed and Henry Otto's 'Dante's inferno' shows itself to be uneven in various ways, and that impression won't really change.

Perhaps it's the notion in Cyrus Wood's story, or the subsequent screenplay of Edmund Goulding, to tell a modern tale on top of the portrayal of Alighieri's Hell. Maybe it's the general ethos that guided the production in various manners. Whatever the case may be, it's hard not to draw comparison to Italian classic 'L'inferno,' produced by Milano Films a full thirteen years before this saw the light of day - and hard not to feel like this is a distinctly lesser creation. It's characterized by a brusqueness that shortchanges the weight of the narrative or imagery; instances of cheapness in the visuals that diminish their intended value or impact; a peculiar estrangement between one element of this feature and the other, or even between this "Inferno" and Alighieri's, that subsequently lowers both. So, for example, the artistry we saw in 1911 sometimes seems to have been traded in for empty facades and vague representations more closely resembling the tawdry exploitation flicks that would begin to rear their heads in the 30s. It often seems like the poets aren't so much taking a journey through the abyss as they are jogging through it, and the picture is decidedly lax about any detail in that component of its storytelling. The depiction and description thereof is emphatically simplified and reduced, and made all the poorer for it, sometimes almost laughably so. The active framing half isn't much better, coming off as heavy-handed in its ideas, and a little weak in its communication of those ideas, and in tying them together; the climax is mostly well done, though some moments thereof more so than others. The editing is overly curt, and Otto's direction overzealous; with the latter aspect in mind, the cast sometimes appear to be wildly overacting, even by the standards of an era in which exaggerated facial expressions and body language were not uncommon.

I'll at least say this much, those behind the scenes mostly turned in good work. Though the editing is often given to excessive swiftness, those performing the work at least demonstrate swell capability. More substantively, the sets are pretty fantastic, above all the imaginative and laborious efforts that are the locales of Dante and Virgil's sojourn. The costume design is rather terrific, and any effects that are employed tend to look really great. If there's anything about 'Dante's inferno' that's outwardly commendable, it's the work of the crew. With that said, strangely, in all these facets I rather feel that this 1924 movie is inferior to the painstaking endeavor of 1911. Surely that's a question of the ends to which the carpenters, painters, costumers, and effects artists were guided, rather than any reflection of their skills, but still the disparity is noteworthy. It's the difference between a carefully conjured, whimsical panoply of imagery both fantastic and earnestly gnarly, versus an exhibition more closely resembling that of a well-financed theater troupe. To add insult to injury, the lighting in some sequences is kind of poor, restricting what we can actually see of this or that.

None of this is to say that this feature is outright bad, because that's not true. But it has difficulty striking a balance between its 'Carol' and its 'Inferno,' and difficulty in making either count and be truly felt by we viewers; both feel insufficient in turn. What I think it comes down to is that in every regard this would have benefited significantly from a more mindful, tactful approach. Not to again draw on a comparison, but the Italian 'L'inferno' was accordingly in production for over three years before its release. I don't know how long it took for this American picture to get made, but it feels in no small part as though it was rushed - developed quickly and incompletely. The big ideas are there, but not the rounding details that would make them matter, nor the fastidious craftsmanship that would help the imagery or storytelling to really make a mark. Thus, while it seems splendid from the outside, once we sit to watch and actively track what it's doing and how it's constructed, the viewing experience becomes less than fully satisfying. I still think 'Dante's inferno' is reasonably worthwhile, but it's nothing remarkable, and nothing for which one needs to go out of their way. There are plenty of other films that should be a higher priority for any viewer, and one of them is thirteen years older. Still, if you have the chance to watch and appreciate the silent era, it's a decent enough way to spend one's time.

This was a movie that I discovered when searching for horror films from 1924. I was able to find a copy on YouTube so I am adding this to my Centennial Club for Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast. This is the second earliest adaptation of this source material from Dante Alighieri that I've now reviewed.

Synopsis: the tactics of a vicious slumlord and greedy businessman finally drive a distraught man to commit suicide. The entrepreneur is tried for murder, executed and afterward swiftly taken by demons to Hell where he will spend the rest of eternity.

Now for this movie we have Mortimer Judd (Ralph Lewis). He's the father of this family as well as the slumlord. He is convinced that if he isn't ruthless, his family would be in the poorhouse. His wife is Mrs. Judd (Winifred Landis). They employ a nurse, Marjorie Vernon (Pauline Starke). Mortimer doesn't seem to think there is anything wrong with her, but that could be due to him not wanting to pay. The doctor who cares for her is Joseph (Lorimer Johnston). They have a son, Ernest (William Scott). He butts heads with his father due to the condition of the apartments they own.

This then shows us a man who is indebted to Mortimer, Eugene Craig (Josef Swickard). He sends a letter asking for mercy, but he's denied. This makes him want to kill himself. His daughter, Mildred (Gloria Grey), is concerned he will do something bad. She then goes to Mortimer to beg. He ignores her as well.

Eugene did send a book to Mortimer, Dante's Inferno. He starts to read and a Fiend (Robert Klein) appears. The book comes to life, with Dante (Lawson Butt) given a tour of the underworld by Virgil (Howard Gaye). The events of the synopsis then go down where Mortimer is punished for what he's done to these people as one of his apartments catch fire, injuring tenants.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. I want to start by prefacing that the version I watched didn't have a soundtrack synced with it. That makes these silent films much different without something accompanying the images. I was also curious as this started with how they were going to work on this classic tale since the beginning was for the time a modern setting. There was social commentary here that I found intriguing and relevant as well.

Let's start with the story that this is following and its message. Mortimer is a slumlord. I found it intriguing to explore this idea with a movie that is a hundred years old now. I'm not sure if that term was used when this was made, but Mortimer owns apartments that have too high of rent for what is provided. This keeps the tenant poor until the point where they get evicted and then he just allows someone new to live there. There is something that happens here though where a fire breaks out, injuring those that live there and making him libel for not helping. This is the climax and the repercussions follow.

There's another interesting storyline as well dealing with Ernest and Mortimer, father and son, since they don't see eye to eye. They get into fights regularly. We see one where Mortimer is upset that Ernest has a radio. Mrs. Judd can't go out so the son bought it so she could have entertainment. Ernest is interested in Marjorie, but this upsets Mortimer since she is there to tend to his wife. Mortimer believes that if he isn't ruthless, his family is going to spend his money until they're broke. He is exaggerating while I can see his side that they don't have an income so there's pressure on him as well.

The last part of the story to delve into was that I wasn't sure how we were going to connect Dante's poem with the story in the present of the movie. I found it interesting that Mortimer is reading this book that was sent to him from Eugene. It almost seems to come with a curse. There is a concept here that I don't love when it is used today, for the most part. I did find it interesting here and how they are incorporating it. This feels like it is borrowing from a Christmas Carol with it. I'm not going to spoil it beyond that.

Where I'll then go would be the acting. Our lead here is Lewis and I thought he plays the villainous role well. He comes off angry and every time we see him, he is rude. That works well for what happens to him later and where it ends. I did like Butt and Gaye as Dante and Virgil to set the stage for the different levels of hell. Scott works as Ernest. I like how him, Starke, Landis and Johnston push what Mortimer does and believes. The same could be said for Swickard and Grey as this other family that came into the story to change the Judd's lives forever. I did have an issue that Bud Jamison was playing the butler. My issue there is that he is white and made him up in blackface for this role. I get it is the time, but it still doesn't sit well. I'd also say that the rest of the cast was solid for what was needed, especially all those playing roles in hell as either demons or those being punished.

All that is left then is filmmaking. I do have to say that the copy I saw on YouTube was rough. It was too dark to make out details. It also made the early title cards hard to see. There also was no soundtrack synced with it. A cleaned-up version would be nice to give this a true rating. With what I could see though, I thought that bringing hell to life was great. I also love this fiend that is haunting Mortimer. I guessed that it wasn't real, but the implications of it work. The effects that we get in hell were all done in-camera so that it's impressive. This is made well enough from what I could tell for this era.

In conclusion, this is another early version of this source material that I've seen. What is interesting is the two different takes on it. I love setting up this story that is relative today about a slumlord who is living off his tenants without doing what he should to help them. Showing us Dante's vision of hell and then Mortimer being punished was great. I thought that the acting was good. The version I saw was rough, but this looked like it was made well enough from what I could tell. There is a story element used that I don't love now. Using it during this era though it is still new. Not having a soundtrack synced was a bummer as well. I'd still recommend this to fans of this era or looking into the history of the horror genre.

My Rating: 7 out of 10.