Goodbye, Mr. Chips - Part 2, The novella and the 2002 and 1984 adaptations

A few days ago, I wrote about one of my favorite movies here, "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" from 1939.
Today, I want to talk about the novella by James Hilton that the movie is based on, but also about a TV film and a TV serial.
I will keep the plot rather short here as it's already in the other post and concentrate on the big differences instead.

"Good-bye, Mr. Chips" is the story of Mr. Chipping, master at Brookfield, a British public school for boys. He begins teaching in 1870 at the age of 22 and stays near the school even after his retirement until his death in 1933.
Despite a short marriage - his wife and their child die during birth - his life is dedicated to the school and the pupils and even in retirement, during the First World War, he substitutes for the headmaster.

According to Hilton, he wrote the novella within one week in 1933 as he had to meet a deadline for a story to appear in the Christmas issue of the "British Weekly". In 1934, it appeared in the "Atlantic" where it was so successful that it was published as a book first in the USA and then in England.
In 1938, the sequel "To You Mr. Chips" was published which had some more Chips stories and an autobiographical chapter about Hilton's own school days.

The 1939 movie pretty much follows the plot of the novella. There are a few small changes, the train ride with the pupils at the beginning, some names, or that Chips takes over for the headmaster not because he joins up, but because he's severely ill.
The biggest change, however, is the love story. The movie concentrates more on how Chips and Kathy Ellis meet and fall in love while the novella emphasizes the influence Kathie Bridges has on Chips and the school.

In the movie, Chips thinks he has to rescue Kathy from the mountain, and while caught in the mist, she surprises him with her progressive ideas. He then loses her because she continues her bike ride with a friend, but they meet again in Vienna and go to a ball. It's all rather head over heel and very romantic.
In the novella, Kathie stands on a ledge, and after Chips sprains his ankle thinking he has to help her, she and her friend have to help him down the mountain instead. Kathie pays him visits while he's laid up, and at first he's not at all sure about this "new woman" with her radical positions like university access for women - and the vote! They talk a lot and get married at the end of the holidays.

She brings these radical positions to the school with her. Once she proposes a football (soccer for Americans) match with boys from the mission in East London run by Brookfield which becomes a surprising (for everyone but Kathie) success. Sometimes she persuades Chips to let boys off for more or less serious offences or talk to them first to find out the reasons which doesn't mean she excuses all of them, though.
Another difference is that the movie builds up the scene to Kathy's death - the doctor saying they will do their best etc. - while it's a very short chapter in the book, and yet both manage in their own way to describe Chips's loss poignantly.

We are talking Hollywood movie, and therefore the way the love story was told isn't surprising to me and I also didn't mind it, but I feel the novella gives Kathie more facets and explains better how her influence changes Chips in his social interactions with the pupils and masters, like when he stands up to the headmaster who wants him to retire.

Ralston was trying to run Brookfield like a factory - a factory for turning out a snob culture based on money and machines. The old gentlemanly traditions of family and broad acres were changing, as doubtless they were bound to; but instead of widening them to form a genuine inclusive democracy of duke and dustman, Ralston was narrowing them upon the single issue of a fat banking account.

That sounds like Kathie, don't you think?

***

Let's get to the 2002 adaptation now which I hadn't known of before. This will be a lot shorter, promise.
Martin Clunes plays Chips and Victoria Hamilton is Kathie.

Again, the story is changed a little, no sprained ankle, but Kathie is given her chance to speak her mind, about Shaw, Ibsen, the vote for women, and more. Instead of a football match she organizes a dance with girls from a nearby school.
And she addresses the headmaster about a boy being bullied in the worst way because he cried about his mother's death.

That is the big difference in this adaptation. Almost from the start, caning, bullying and fagging (a former practice at schools meaning younger pupils were required to act as personal servants for older ones) are a really big topic while they are only very lightly touched on - if at all - in the novella and movie of 1939 when these practices were sadly still regarded as quite normal.
Also the war scenes were more dramatic, like a plane crashing on the school premises and Chips making sure to help the pilot although he's German.

***

Back to 1984 now, to a six part TV serial with Roy Marsden and Jill Meager.

The serial also follows the novella rather closely (this time we get the football match). As we have a runtime that is almost twice as long as that of the films, though, some embellishments were to be expected.
One of them comes in the person of Mrs. Wickett.
Mrs. Wickett was once a matron at Brookfield and rents rooms out to Mr. Chips in his old age. That's the same as in the films and novella, but in the serial he first meets her when she still works as a maid and he comforts her after she has made a mistake and wants to run away.
She's quite devoted to him and works with him when he gets the post of housemaster despite being a bachelor. So when he returns from his holidays with a wife, we already know there will be problems. Although Kathie tries not to make Mrs. Wickett feel obsolete now, every attempt to contribute to the household or make a change is taken wrongly. Finally they bond over caring for a boy together who's severely ill.
Kathie later dies because she slips and has a heart attack from the fall, her child is stillborn (no idea why they thought that was a better idea).
Another story that was added is that of a pupil who is due for going to France, but can't get himself to go after seeing his father, who has been terribly mutilated in war, in hospital and is therefore arrested as a deserter.

***

There were more adaptations than the three I introduced you to, radio, theater, and a musical film from 1969 with Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark.
 

I couldn't hunt the film down, but after reading about it, I was actually glad I couldn't as it deviated from the original in a way that wouldn't have made me happy.
It is set between the 20s and the 60s, Katherine is a music hall singer. Her background makes a wealthy lord threaten to withdraw a financial endowment, but Katherine threatens back to expose his relationship to a friend of hers.
Oh, and she dies in an air raid after a long marriage.
It really doesn't sound as if I would like it. I don't want my Mr. Chips to sing, either. It's something he would never do.

***

All adaptations I watched were enjoyable in their own way.

I liked Kathie in the 1984 version because Jill Meager gave such competent and yet friendly and understanding vibes. To me, she seemed most like the "new woman" that intimidated Chips so much at first. I could have well imagined her marching as a suffragette.
Victoria Hamilton seemed determined, but a bit too soft for my taste, well, and Greer Garson didn't get the chance to show much more than being a beautiful and kind lady, so you really can't compare.
Roy Marsden was okay, but Martin Clunes definitely showed more layers to his Chips. I thought his best scene was him standing up to the headmaster, with such cold rage when he accused him of running the school like a factory. I think the 2002 film was the most realistic one, not romanticizing life at a public school, and I enjoyed it more than I would have thought.

But let's be honest, I watch Mr. Chips for Robert Donat. For the shyness and the fear to fail, for the sadness about being mediocre as a master (which he is described as in the novella) and the longing to make it, anyway. For the desire to be not just respected but loved by the pupils. For learning to love and to understand, bearing a loss and carrying on, for making jokes and chuckling.
So it's sentimental, okay, but mainly warm-hearted. There's nothing wrong with a bit of escapism every, now and then.
And darn that score that plays with my emotions so well, works every time (and I don't mean the "Blue Danube" which is the theme for Kathy and Chips)! 😉

There, and now you made it all the way through. Aren't you glad?

Take a rest ... for the next time!

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 179

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

I finished this bead embroidered pendant the other day. The crazy lace agate is surrounded by two levels of hexagon beads in three different colors, sprinkled with golden seed beads, and of course I once again couldn't resist going free form!
I love hexagon beads and like to sew them on one by one, so I can keep changing the direction a lot. When the light hits all those edges, it produces a beautiful sparkle that is hard to capture in a picture, though, so you just have to take my word for it.

***

And now my contribution to Anne's and Olivia's "Friday Book Snippets" where you share a quote - a sentence or short paragraph - from the beginning of a book you read at the moment and one from page 56 (or another).

Today, mine are from "Professor Unrat" from 1905 by Heinrich Mann. I'm reading it in German as part of my personal classics challenge, but will use snippets from the English translation "Small Town Tyrant".
You may have heard of the movie "Der blaue Engel" ("The Blue Angel") based on it, starring Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich, which is also a classic, or maybe you know at least Dietrich's signature song "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)". I haven't watched the movie myself (yet?).
It tells the story of a strict teacher whose downfall is falling in love with a singer.

Beginning: "His name being Gaubage, the whole school, of course, called him Garbage. Nothing could have been more simple or more natural; the teachers were always given nicknames. Each new batch of scholars in a class-room, not finding the efforts of their predecessors sufficiently funny, seized on the chance of inventing a still more nimble nickname. Old Garbage, however, had kept the same one for several generations of students, and the whole town knew him by it. Even his colleagues used it out of school - and in the sacred precincts, when his back was turned."

Page 56: "Oh, now she had finished and the audience were clapping and shouting "Bravo". He suddenly found himself clapping, too, and he looked down at his hands with astonishment. He felt a singular desire to stamp on the ground. Luckily he had the strength of character to resist that folly, but he was not annoyed with himself for having felt like that; on the contrary, he smiled, in the enjoyment of thinking himself something of a rake."

***

Back to the Weekend Traffic Jam.
As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on I Live For My Dreams.

Sas from I Live For My Dreams says: "Ik ben Sas, schrijfster sinds 2009 van iliveformydreams. Uit de jaren '80." Oh, your Dutch is as non-existent as mine? No problem. You can switch to English at the bottom of each post (one of the times I sadly have to rely on AI).
Okay, here we go: "I am Sas, writer since 2009 for iliveformydreams. From the 80s. Married, Mom to Noa, and in daily life a childcare worker and full-time enthusiast. I have a fondness for London, tea (mugs), squirrels, skating, and reading."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Jill shares pictures of the beautiful wildflowers in the Dryandra Woodland, Western Australia.

Check out the Halloween snacks that Laura and Laurie prepare!

Ann is getting haunted by a ghost ...

Mireille has a black and brown fall combo to show.


Let's link up!

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Silent movies - The Haunted House

Hold on to your seats, ladies and gentlemen, it's going to get really scary now.
Please welcome Mister Buster Keaton in "The Haunted House" from 1921!

Are your nerves ready for the plot (and spoilers)?

Keaton is a bank teller.
And one of his co-workers is a crook who deals with counterfeit money and plans to rob the bank together with his gang and then hide in a "haunted house" in spooky disguises.
The morning goes by with business as usual, that is if you count getting money and glue mixed up.
Now if you think that isn't scary, you seem to have forgotten my toxic relationship with glue. I swear I yelled out loud when I saw this! 😉

Glue, glue everywhere,
hands, floor, bottoms, pockets, and hair!

At that moment, the gang turn up and thanks to the glue Keaton almost manages to thwart the robbery, but when the manager sees him with the gun, they all run after him.
He manages to escape and unknowingly hide in the "haunted" house, but he's not the only one. A theater troupe flees the stage after royally messing up "Faust" and being pelted with vegetables - guess where they end up.

So now we have Buster, the theater people, and the gangsters in the house, scaring and getting scared.
It doesn't help that the stairs keep turning into a slide so Buster has to find ways of avoiding falling down again and again.

GIF by nishaane on Tenor

This isn't the only surprise in the house, though. We have the exploding candle, a trap door, the "living" chair, and of course ghosts, skeletons building a real man, and the devil (Mephisto from the theater)!

Keaton runs and jumps and climbs and falls, but then he finds out that the "ghosts" are just men in sheets.
And finally the bank manager and police have also made it to the house. They fall through the trap door into the basement and arrest the whole gang thanks to Buster who has disguised as a ghost himself by now.

Before being taken away, the boss hits our hero on the head, though, and he's dead.
Two angels show him the long stairway to heaven which he walks up ...

... where he's refused entry by Saint Peter who pulls the lever and turns the stairs into a slide ...

... right into hell.

A helper devil gets to work poking Buster with a burning fork ... which wakes him up as it has just been a dream, but the fire is real!
The bank manager's daughter is very happy to see that he's alive and they embrace.

The two-reeler (runtime 24 minutes) is clearly divided into two parts, the bank and the haunted house.
While there are some fun gags in the bank, such as Buster's clothes being caught for hours in the door of the time locked safe (why didn't he try to take them off?), that part is quite repetitive with the different glue shenanigans.

"After searching everywhere else
the police found him where he was."

The second part, however, was hilarious thanks to Buster Keaton's energy. There were some great pratfalls and jumps, and I liked the choreography of the characters meeting or missing one another.
The main protagonist beside Keaton (and the glue) was of course the stairs/slide combo whose heavenly version may look familiar to you if you have seen the 1946 movie "A Matter of Life and Death" with David Niven (which I can recommend, by the way).

I loved the different ways Buster tries to avoid the fall down the slide by jumping up the last few steps, trying to slide down while it's still stairs, sliding down the bannister, even running up the slide!
So while it wasn't the funniest Keaton film I have seen so far - you also have to keep in mind this was one of the earlier ones - I still enjoyed it.

I hope I didn't scare you too much 😉

Goodbye Mr. Chips - Part 1, The 1939 movie

I'm not saying goodbye to my favorite chips brand today, but will be talking about one of my favorite movies.
You know how I sometimes say I'm fascinated by something and don't know why? One of these things are British boarding schools. It surely started with Enid Blyton's St. Clare's books, in German "Hanni und Nanni" (and, though not British, Oliver Hassencamp's books about "Burg Schreckenstein" which will be a topic for another post).
Boarding schools were (and are?) a quite foreign concept to most German children and being served romanticized stories about them only increased the fascination which for me never went away completely.
In Germany, we don't even have the tradition of wearing school uniforms. There are few schools that have tried to introduce mandatory "school clothing" - meaning there's a collection to choose from, not everyone has to wear the same uniform - but it hasn't caught on. I remember that we even talked about pros and cons in English class 50 years ago.
And still I have a weird soft spot for British school stories that I can't seem to turn off. Show me a cap and gown and chances are I'll have a look.

One of them is "Goodbye Mr. Chips". Before I read the original novella, I knew the movie from 1939 with Robert Donat which is why I want to talk about it first.
Here's its plot.

For the first time in 58 years, retired school master Charles Edward Chipping misses the first day assembly at Brookfield, a public school with a 400 year old history, and gets locked out together with a new pupil.

Back home, he falls asleep and his dreams take him back to when came to the school as new master.
He remembers his first time of taking lower school for preparation and failing miserably at standing up to the pupils' pranks. He reacts by enforcing strict discipline and by unpopular punishments - such as keeping the class in and thus preventing the best cricketeer from playing in an important cup match - which earns him the respect, but not the love of the pupils.
After 20 years, he's senior master but still doesn't get the coveted post of housemaster.

Things change when the German teacher Max Staefel invites him to join him on a walking tour in Austria.
On a mountain hike, Chipping meets the young Kathy Ellis with whom he gets trapped in the mist. Although Kathy has modern feminist ideas like riding a bicycle and wanting the vote, they get along great.

Later, Chipping and Staefel meet Kathy and her friend again in Vienna and spend a happy time together. When they say farewell at the train, Kathy kisses Chipping and they return to Brookfield as a married couple.
Kathy teaches Chips as she calls him now how to gain the pupils' love and trust. She introduces tea invitations and everyone adores her. Thanks to her, Chips even becomes housemaster.
Unfortunately, they are not married for long when Kathy and their baby die during birth and Chips is devastated. He dedicates his whole life to the school again, the way Kathy would have wanted him to, and when the new headmaster urges him to retire as he has become too old-fashioned for the school, he refuses and the governors, some of which have been taught by him, also won't let it happen.

After he has retired, World War I breaks out and as many of the teachers join up including the headmaster, Chips is asked to come back and take the headmastership for as long as needed.
Even during an air raid, he manages to keep the pupils busy to distract them from the danger.
One of his sad duties is to read out the lists of former pupils who have died in the war. Once, he also mentions the death of his old friend Max who had returned back to Austria some years before the war. The boys are surprised to hear him speak about an enemy, but as one of them says, Chips has a lot of funny ideas like that.

The old man stays close to the school all his life.
In the end, he's bed-ridden and he hears the headmaster and doctor talk. The doctor says how lonely he must have been and the headmaster tells him that Chips used to be married once.

When Chips hears the doctor saying what a pity it is he never had children, he replies: "I thought I heard you say it was a pity - pity I never had any children. But you're wrong. I have! Thousands of them, thousands of them ... and all ... boys.".
And before his eyes, the last thing he sees is the queue of boys in call over and then Peter Colley - there were generations of Colleys at Brookfield - saying "Goodbye Mr. Chips."

I know that just from reading about it the movie may seem sappy and sentimental, and yes, maybe it is a little, and yes, maybe it romanticizes the image of public schools for privileged boys as a "special community".
I think it's thanks to Robert Donat being so fantastic in this role - which is still one of his most popular ones - that it really is more heartwarming than sappy, though (a young modern audience might think differently, then again maybe not as there seem to be those who discover classic movies on their own, maybe as a bit of escapism sometimes?).
Seeing the school through Chipping's eyes - as stubbornly traditional as that may be sometimes - and not from the outside prevents the movie from slipping into mere sentimentalism. You may not agree with him on everything, but you understand how he grew to be like that.
Of course, you also can't forget that the movie is set in the years between 1870 and 1933. Can you imagine how different it would be, say, in the years between 1940 and 2003 with all the changes in technology?
In the film, Donat ages 63 years, and helped by the amazing makeup, he just does it perfectly - and won an Oscar for it.

I also liked the other actors, though, particularly in the story of Chips and Kathy (Greer Garson), but Donat really makes this movie.

To me, it's pure comfort food and it feels as if I have known Mr. Chips forever.
That is funny because according to a German page it wasn't dubbed in German and shown here on TV until 1998 (although the translated novella had been around much longer). It's not as if I didn't have one or the other occasion to see movies in English, but this one? I don't think so.
Anyhow, it must have hit a nerve with me right away. Why else would I have bought the book and the DVD and watched the movie regularly?

Now originally my plan had been to write about the novella the movie is based on and two more adaptations as well, but I might have lost you with a post that long. Instead they'll get a post of their own in a few days which you will be able to find here once it's live.

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 178

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

"Bzzzzzzz." Where did that come from? "Uhm, excuse me?" "Oh, there you are!"
Well, I certainly hadn't expected this. "Who are you?" "I'm Winnie-the-Pooh." "More like Winnie-the-Bee?"
It turns out that Winnie is celebrating his 100th birthday by dressing up as a bee. He dropped in because he had got a bit hungry. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a honey eater, but luckily there was a bit left in the glass in the back of the cupboard.
He had to use one of Gundel's fish embellished bowls, but he said he didn't mind.

***

And now my contribution to Anne's and Olivia's "Friday Book Snippets" where you share a quote - a sentence or short paragraph - from the beginning of a book you read at the moment and one from page 56 (or another).

Today, mine are from an exhibition catalog for "The Sitwells and the Arts of the 20s and 30s", held at the National Portrait Gallery 1994/95.

Beginning: "An early law suit records that in 1301 Simon Sitwell was living at Ridgeway in the parish of Eckington, north-east Derbyshire. His descendants - first ironmasters, later coal owners, recently poets and authors - have lived in the area ever since."

Page 57 (page 56 is a portrait of Edith Sitwell): "For one of these [portraits] I wore a green evening dress, the colour of the leaves of lilies, and my appearance in this, in the full glare of the midsummer light of midday, in Fitzroy Square, together with the appearance of Mr Fry, his bushy, long grey hair floating from under an enormous black sombrero, caused great joy to the children of the district as we crossed from Mr Fry's studio to his house for luncheon."

You may remember that previous snippets were from a book saying that the dead actress "knew the Sitwells". Of course I had to see what that was about.

***

Back to the Weekend Traffic Jam.
As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Shelbee On the Edge.

Shelbee from Shelbee on the Edge says: "You are probably wondering who is this woman and what does she have to offer me. I do not put myself out there as an expert of any sort. I often wonder where people obtain their qualifications as experts, such as these self-proclaimed “parenting experts” and “marriage experts.”
Because, honestly, while my marriage is strong and my kids are healthy, I have to admit that I don’t really know what the hell I am doing in most areas of my life. But I wake up every day with a smile and I tackle the challenges that face me and every night I breathe a sigh of relief that we all have survived another day. I think what qualifies me to share the little information that I have acquired is simply my life experiences.
I can share what I learned along the way, what mistakes I have made, and what things I have done right. I feel that simply surviving some of trials that I have overcome obligates me to share this information with others in the event that it may make the ride a little bit easier for you."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Joanne is sharing her everyday images.

Jeanne has created another beautiful mosaic stepping stone.

Debbie tells you why to choose you if you have lost your spark.

Melynda prepares a roasted lemon and basil salad dressing.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Eerie Tales

Today's film is sliiiightly longer than the last two and so is the post (sorry). We will stay in the Halloween spirit with it.
I just wanted to say that I didn't have one like it on my blog before, but then I remembered "Waxworks" - it's another anthology film, bonus point is it's also with Conrad Veidt (and Anita Berber and Reinhold Schünzel)!
Welcome to "Eerie Tales" from 1919 (the original title is "Unheimliche Geschichten" or "Grausige Nächte").

Here's the plot or really the plots as we have a frame story and five episodes within it.

We are in a used bookshop shortly before closing time.
There are three huge paintings on the walls, "The Devil", "The Harlot", and "Death".

As the shop owner has left, the three emerge from their frames and start reading.

1. "The Apparition" by Anselma Heine

Dr. Riedhammer walks through the park and helps a young woman who is assaulted by a man - her husband as she tells him later. They check into two rooms at a hotel. Although they feel attracted to another and kiss, he then leaves her alone as she isn't feeling well.

Riedhammer spends the evening with friends, but goes to the woman's room when he comes back.
He finds it completely empty, she is gone, all the furniture is gone. The wall looks like blood and as if the paper has been torn off it.

When he asks for her the next day, everyone tells him that he has checked in alone, and the room looks normal again, too. At the police where he also gets attacked by her husband, they also tell him that they are informed and that he has been alone.
He's beginning to doubt himself, but then he's told by an undertaker that she had been taken away secretly because she died of the plague that night ...

2. "The Hand" by Robert Liebmann

Two men are in love with a woman.

When she dances with another man, they get jealous, go home, and decide to roll the dice for the right to court her.
The loser can't bear it, though, and strangles the winner, then escapes after he has pried the dead man's hand from his sleeve.

Years later, he meets the woman again, she invites him to her first dance performance, but there he has hallucinations seeing his opponent. Then they invite him to a séance and the dead man comes back ...

3. "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe

A man is interested in a drunkard's wife. When the husband notices, he takes it out on his wife's beloved black cat, but doing so, he kills her instead and then walls her body up in the cellar.

The man hears rumors about the drunkard's wife having disappeared. He calls the police and they search the house. When they come to the cellar, they hear a strange wailing noise ...

4. "The Suicide Club" by Robert Louis Stevenson

A man joins a special club. You join the regular way, but you leave it only by death. Whoever draws the ace of spades, well, you know ... and unfortunately the new member is the "lucky winner".

The president locks him in his chair by pushing a button (don't ask me how that works) and tells him that he will die at midnight. Then he unlocks the chair and leaves the panicking man behind going through a passage in the clock.

And then the man dies, killed by the fear. Or does he?

5. "The Specter" by Richard Oswald

A cavalier has an accident with his carriage and is taken to a castle where he immediately starts flirting with the owner's neglected wife.

Then the husband has a plan ...

The bookshop owner comes back, shocked to find the three in his shop. He fetches the police and is relieved to see the them back in their paintings. When the policemen are gone, however, they come back to life and he runs off.

Let's have a look at the stories behind the stories now.

Anselma Heine was a German writer.
Her novella "Die Erscheinung" from 1912 has a lot of atmosphere and explores the Dr. Riedhammer's feelings when he first sees Johne Stevens in a cloud of dust looking like an apparition, then meets her on his ship slowly growing closer to her, and then his shock when Johne suddenly disappears. I was glad to find it online and really liked it.
As we have three leads, that episode adds the strange husband, who is just mentioned in the novella, and also leaves out the backstory.
In my opinion, it's the strongest and eeriest story of the five.

Robert Liebmann was one of the most successful scriptwriters in the Weimar Republic.
The story is a classic, a guilt-stricken man being haunted by his victim, but not before he meets the woman again who was the reason for his crime. Also, he's not the only who can see him.
A special treat is that Berber actually has a short dance scene in this episode. You may (or not) know, for example through the famous painting of hers by Otto Dix, that she was an icon in the Berlin clubs as a dancer and known for the scandals in her short life.

I don't think I have to say anything about Edgar Allan Poe.
Knowing the story, I was wary about watching this episode (while the animal abuse was toned down and no cat was killed, I still wasn't happy at all about the way the drunk husband treated the black cat in one scene).
We have another triangle to allow for the three actors.
The ending could have been more dramatic, but I thought it was okay given you couldn't hear the wailing cat.

I haven't read "The Suicide Club" (actually there are three stories about the club) by Stevenson yet, but from the synopsis that I skimmed they really just kept the concept of the club for this episode.
There's a very nice twist at the end.

The last story was written by the director and, how should I say it, it's not eerie, but seems more like comic relief to me.
Frankly, I thought it was boring because you mostly saw the cavalier and the wife smiling at each other weirdly, uhm, I meant flirting with each other.
I don't know what the director intended with this one, but think the movie would have been better off by putting the episode first or leave it out completely. The costumes are nice, though.

All in all, I enjoyed the movie. Putting eye makeup on Veidt would make any movie eerie, don't you think?
Seriously, though, he did a fine job. Schünzel, on the other hand, was a little too dramatic for my taste as the crazy or drunk husband. Berber was best as the cat loving wife (no, I'm not saying that because Gundel made me!).

Further reading:

1. Fritzi Kramer: Eerie Tales (1919) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, September 22, 2024
2. ?: Movie Review - Eerie Tales (1919). On: The Revenant Review, October 27, 2015 (interesting more for the part about the leads than the short review)