The Phantom Carriage

Director: Victor Sjöström
Year Released: 1921
Rating: 3.0

Creepy silent from Swedish great Sjöström revolves around the fictional concept that a person who dies on New Year's Eve is forced to spend the rest of the year as Death collecting souls. In this case, the person that dies is a drunkard (Sjöström, taking on double duty as star and director) who allowed the sauce - and eventually, tuberculosis - to ravage his life and personal relationships, but there's a dying Salvation Army worker who desperately wants to see him before she passes on herself. The handling of the flashbacks and side-stories isn't exactly smooth and the picture certainly has a feel of its own - it's haunted, God-fearing but hopeful and it allows room for redemption. I can imagine teenage Ingmar Bergman watched this utterly slack-jawed and trembling.