The Avenging Conscience
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The Avenging Conscience: or "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is a 1914 silent horror film directed by D. W. Griffith.[1] The film is based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" and his 1849 poem "Annabel Lee".[2]
Plot
A young man (Henry B. Walthall) interested in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, falls in love with a beautiful woman (Blanche Sweet), but he is prevented by the uncle (Spottiswoode Aitken) that raised him since childhood from pursuing her. Tormented by visions of death and suffering and deciding that murder is the way of things, the young man kills his uncle and builds a wall to hide the body.
The young man's torment continues, this time caused by guilt over murdering his uncle that was overheard by an Italian witness, and he becomes sensitive to slight noises, like the tapping of a shoe or the crying of a bird. The ghost of his uncle begins appearing to him and, as he gradually loses his grip on reality, the police figure out what he has done and chase him down. In the ending sequence, we learn that the experience was all a dream and that his uncle is really alive. They make up, and the nephew gets to marry the sweetheart.
Cast
- Henry B. Walthall as the nephew
- Blanche Sweet as his sweetheart
- Spottiswoode Aitken as the uncle
- George Siegmann as the Italian
- Ralph Lewis as the detective
- Mae Marsh as the maid
- Robert Harron as the grocery boy
- George Beranger
- Wallace Reid — the doctor
Reception
Dennis Schwartz, labeling the film with a grade of B−, labeled it as a film with important historical value as "the first great American horror film."[3]
References
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- ↑ The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:The Avenging Conscience
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External links
- Template:Trim/ Template:Trim at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidataScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:WikidataCheck
- Template:Trim Template:PAGENAMEBASE is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
Template:D. W. Griffith Template:The Tell-Tale Heart Template:Authority control
- Pages with script errors
- Pages using infobox film with flag icon
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with Internet Archive links
- 1914 films
- 1914 drama films
- 1914 horror films
- 1910s American films
- 1910s English-language films
- 1910s horror drama films
- American black-and-white films
- American horror drama films
- American silent feature films
- Films based on multiple works
- Films based on poems
- Films based on The Tell-Tale Heart
- Films directed by D. W. Griffith
- Mutual Film films
- Silent American drama films
- Silent American horror films
- Surviving American silent films
- English-language horror drama films