The Beetle (film)

The Beetle
The Beetle
Directed by	Alexander Butler
Written by	Richard Marsh (novel) ; Helen Blizzard
Produced by	Jack W. Smith
Starring	Leal Douglas; Maudie Dunham ; Hebden Foster ; Fred Morgan ;
Production; company	Barker Films
Distributed by	Urban Trading Company
Release date	November 1919;
Running time	62 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Languages	Silent ; English intertitles

The Beetle is a 1919 British silent horror film directed by Alexander Butler and starring Leal Douglas, Maudie Dunham, Hebden Foster and Fred Morgan. It was based on the 1897 novel The Beetle: A Mystery by Richard Marsh.^[1]

The 1897 novel went into print a few months after Bram Stoker's Dracula hit bookshelves, and it outsold Dracula at the time. It has since passed into relative obscurity, although it seems to have served as Stoker's inspiration for his 1903 The Jewel of Seven Stars, which also involved an ancient Egyptian princess reincarnating into the body of a modern-day woman.^[1] Director Alexander Butler went on to an acting role in the similarly themed 1925 film She.^[1]

Jonathan Rigby has called Leal Douglas’s High Priestess “the polymorphous title role”.^[2]

Plot

An Ancient Egyptian princess (Leal Douglas) transforms herself into a beetle in order to gain revenge on Paul Lessingham, a British Member of Parliament.^[3] The creature can change its form, appearing as a man, a woman or a beetle. Lessingham seeks the aid of another man, who is a rival for the affections of a young woman they love, to aid him in his fight against the supernatural being that is haunting him.

Cast

Leal Douglas as High Priestess
Maudie Dunham as Dora Greyling
Hebden Foster as Paul Lessingham
Fred Morgan as Neces
Frank Reade as Sidney Atherton
Rolf Leslie as Holt
Nancy Kenyon as Marjorie Lindon

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). "Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era". Midnight Marquee Press. 203.ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.
^ Jonathan Rigby, English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema (Reynolds & Hearn, 2004), p. 16
^ Rigby p.16

Bibliography

Low, Rachael. History of the British Film, 1918-1929. George Allen & Unwin, 1971.
Rigby, Jonathan. English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema. Reynolds & Hearn, 2004.

External links

The Beetle at IMDb

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[Workman-1] Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). "Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era". Midnight Marquee Press. 203.ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.

[2] Jonathan Rigby, English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema (Reynolds & Hearn, 2004), p. 16

[3] Rigby p.16

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