A silent film from 1926, The Bells stars Lionel Barrymore as Mathias, a businessman who lives in a small Austrian village during the 19th Century.
Mathias is the owner of the inn, the bar, and the local mill. He’s a popular man around town, specifically because he gives away drinks and meals on credit but he rarely bothers to collect. He’s hoping that his generosity will lead to him being elected burgomaster. Instead, it’s left him in debt to Frantz (Gustav von Seyffertitz), who threatens to take away everything that Mathias owns unless Mathias agrees to allow Frantz to marry his daughter, Annette (Lola Todd). Annette, however, is in love with Christian (Eddie Phillips).
On one snowy Christmas night, a traveler from Poland (E. Alyn Warren) enters the bar. Mathias befriends the man but, when he sees that the man is carrying a lot of gold, Mathias’s desperation takes over. He follows the man outside and stabs him. As the man dies, he shakes a set of horse bells at the man.
Mathias is soon out-of-debt and he is also elected burgomaster. His daughter is free to marry Christian. However, Mathias finds himself consumed with guilt. The ghost of the dead man continually appears to him and stares at him without saying a word. Mathias is haunted by the sound of the ringing bells. Soon, the man’s identical twin brother arrives in town, looking for the murderer. Accompanying him is a mesmerist (Boris Karloff) who claims that he can always get the guilty to confess.
The Bells is a surprisingly effective film. It’s a silent film so we don’t actually hear the sound of the bells. But we do see Mathias reacting to what he hears and we see him seeing the bells ringing and what we imagine is undoubtedly scarier than anything that a sound film could recreate. Meanwhile, the silence of the dead man’s ghost is far more ominous than if the ghost had spoken accusingly. Because the ghost does not speak, Mathias doesn’t know what it wants and neither do we. The Ghost itself never reacts to Mathias’s words. Instead, it just stares at him. We’re left to wonder if the ghost is real or if Mathias’s guilt-stricken mind is playing tricks on him. It’s also impossible not to notice that, though Frantz was the one who was causing Mathias so much worry, Mathias take his anger out on a stranger, on someone who he probably presumed wouldn’t be missed. In the film, it’s made clear that the traveler was also Jewish. He was an outsider, a Jew who came to an inn on Christmas and was murdered because someone else wanted to take his possessions. The film is not just about the guilt of one man but it’s also a portrait of the institutional anti-Semitism that has historically defined so much of Europe.
Lionel Barrymore gives a strong performance as Mathias. Since the film was made at a time when actors could not be heard, Barrymore uses his eyes and the tilt of his head to show us what Mathias is thinking and he does a great job showing us Mathias growing increasingly more and more desperate. Mathias is never portrayed as being a simple villain. Instead, he’s a man who lost control for one terrible moment and now has to live with the consequences of his actions. The film also makes good use of Boris Karloff’s imposing physical presence. Just as with the ghost, the film leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether the mesmerist has any powers or not. Karloff plays him as being a intimidating enigma.
Considering the limits of the era in which it wad made, The Bells holds up well. Director James Young emphasizes the story’s ominous atmosphere. His direction of the snowstorm and the murder is especially impressive. The sight of the victim’s blood falling onto the snow remains a haunting one. One hundred years after it was released, The Bells remains a memorable look at the haunting power of guilt.
