The Poisoned Light

The Poisoned Light (1921)

Otrávené světlo

Professor Grant signs a contract with Dr. Selin for the sale of his invention of cold light with the plans for his invention being kept in Grant's apartment. The negotiations are secretly heard by the illusionist Durk, who wants to seize the invention. A few days later Selín is found dead, killed by a light bulb filled with poisonous gas. Durk performs at the birthday party of Grant's daughter Anna and seizes the plans for the invention.

Date of release
1921-10-21
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (4)
Runtime
1h 2m
Genres
Crime, Adventure
Director
Karel Lamač, Jan S. Kolár

Casting

Interesting facts

The Poisoned Light is a 1921 Czechoslovak silent adventure film co-directed and co-written by Jan S. Kolár and Karel Lamač. It is the first Czech non-comedic crime film, although a review in Czech Film Newsreel also noted certain parodic elements.

Production

The film was produced under the banner of the company Kalos-film, founded by Alfred Baštýř, a supporter of Czech cinema, and was among the first works shot at the newly established A–B Vinohrady film studios.

The filmmakers drew inspiration from post-war foreign productions, incorporating Hollywood techniques and an action-orientated narrative style: the film features a rapid succession of events, lively characters, and a romantic subplot interwoven with the investigative storyline.

The film offers a textbook example of a "MacGuffin"—an object essential to the plot (serving to drive the action and characters forward) but otherwise of little intrinsic importance—long before the term was popularised by Alfred Hitchcock.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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