into
divinity. The phrase thrown on the screen is "The moon never beams
without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee." And the sense
of loss goes through and through one like a flight of arrows. Another
noble picture, more realistic, more sculpturesque, is of Annabel mourning
on her knees in her room. Her bended head makes her akin to "Niobe, all
tears."

The boy meditating on a park-path is meanwhile watching the spider in his
web devour the fly. Then he sees the ants in turn destroy the spider.
These pictures are shown on so large a scale that the spiderweb fills the
end of the theatre. Then the ant-tragedy does the same. They can be
classed as particularly apt hieroglyphics in the sense of chapter
thirteen. Their horror and decorative iridescence are of the Poe sort.
It is the first hint of the Poe hieroglyphic we have had except the black
patch over the eye of the uncle, along with his jaundiced, cadaverous
face. The boy meditates on how all nature turns on cruelty and the
survival of the fittest.

He passes just now an Italian laborer (impersonated by George Seigmann).
This laborer enters later into his dream. He finally goes to sleep in his
chair, the resolve to kill his uncle rankling in his heart.

The audience is not told that a dream begins. To understand that, one
must see the film through twice. But it is perfectly legitimate to
deceive us. Through our ignorance we share the young man's
hallucinations, entering into them as imperceptibly as he does. We think
it is the next morning. Poe would start the story just here, and here the
veritable Poe-esque quality begins.

After debate within himself as to means, the nephew murders his uncle and
buries him in the thick wall of the chimney. The Italian laborer
witnesses the death-struggle through the window. While our consciences
are aching and the world crashes round us, he levies black-mail. Then
for due compensation the Italian becomes an armed sentinel. The boy fears
detection.

Yet the foolish youth thinks he will be happy. But every time he runs to
meet his sweetheart he is appalled by hallucinations over her shoulder.
The cadaverous ghost of the uncle is shown on the screen several times.
It is an appearance visible to the young man and the audience only. Later
the ghost is implied by the actions of the guilty one. We merely imagine
it. This is a piece of sound technique. We no more need a dray full of
ghosts than a dray full of jumping fur