To me, this movie is perfection.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Burgomaster is from the German word 'bergermeister'--a word that means 'mayor' in English. I mention this because the main player in this film, Mathias (Lionel Barrymore) plays an innkeeper who longs to become the town's next Burgomaster. To do so, he ingratiates himself to everyone--extending credit left and right to his patrons in an attempt to buy their votes. However, he simply cannot afford to do this and is deeply in debt--in debt to another man who wants this same job. Eventually, when all seems lost, Mathias comes upon a solution when he kills a traveler who he knows is loaded with gold. Unfortunately, while this does immediately solve things and Mathias wins the election, he cannot live with himself for such an evil deed.Later, the dead man's brother returns to town with a mesmerist (this term is now knows as a hypnotist and is played by Boris Karloff). This hypnotist supposedly has the power to read minds and make confess. At first you may not recognize Karloff in his garb, as he's dressed almost exactly like the evil mesmerist, Dr. Caligari, from the famous German film. As for Mathias, he's so convinced that the ghost of the dead man is haunting him that by the end of the film he's ready to do anything to make this stop--even if it means confessing. This follows a particularly vivid and crazy dream in which the mesmerist prosecutes him for murder.While this was an exceptional film, I did feel that perhaps the ending could have been done a bit better--as Barrymore's stumbling about as if in the throes of death took way too long and was clearly overdone and it all seemed a bit old fashioned and hokey. Still, an interesting silent film and one that fans of the genre will no doubt enjoy.

This is quite a decent silent horror film. The print I watched was quite rich. It is a story, not unlike "Crime and Punishment," where a man beset by debt through his own shortsightedness, kills a kind old Jew and lives it up on his money. He spends on his daughter's wedding, buying clothes for his wife, and playing the part of the Burgomaster. Unfortunately, the bells in the title are the sleigh bells of the shay that the old man was driving when he was murdered. One of the strangest things is the appearance of Boris Karloff as a mesmerist. This was years before his appearance in "Frankenstein." He has thick glasses and this hideous grin. He has the power to get people to talk about their worst actions. Everything plays out, but I'm still not sure about the conclusion. It is a very interesting film and it has Lionel Barrymore playing something other than a bent over old curmudgeon.

"The Bells" is a very fine silent movie from 1926 that is not at all creaky and should manage to impress modern-day viewers. As revealed in my beloved "Psychotronic Video Guide," this story was, remarkably, filmed no less than four times prior to this 1926 version, and three times subsequently in 1930s Europe! It made a huge star of British actor Henry Irving in 1872, when performed on stage. Anyway, the plot is a simple one, and concerns family man Mathias (here played by the great Lionel Barrymore, looking younger than you've probably ever seen him), who, in order to pay off his mortgage debt, kills a wealthy Polish Jew merchant for the gold in his money belt. He soon goes insane with guilt, and begins to hallucinate the ghost of the Polish Jew, hear the bells of his victim's sleigh, dream of himself on trial in court and, in one impressive scene, play cards with the murdered man. It is an excellent performance from Barrymore. The FX in this film are pretty fine, too, and director James Young makes the film visually striking by filling his frame with great detail and constant movement. And Boris Karloff, six years before his Frankenstein breakthrough, is memorable in his small role as a freaky-looking mesmerist. To add to the viewer's pleasure (at least on the disc that I just watched), the fine folks at Image Entertainment have given us a very crisp- and clean-looking DVD, with beautiful color tinting. (I'm still not sure why I despise colorization for old talkies but don't seem to mind it for silents!) Two problems, though: The film ends kind of abruptly, and although the picture is widely quoted as being 92 minutes long, the film I saw last night was just a shade over 70 minutes in length. What's up with that?

I'm taking an interest in silent horror films at the moment, so far I have seen this film and Nosferatu. Nosferatu is of cause much better, with a real style and sense of horror. This movie is rather dull and boring in places although it does have points of note. The starting of the film is good introducing all the characters and the setting, but then it takes a little while to get into the plot. The murder and the lead up to it is another high point, with a good use of tinting to show where things are turning bad. The use of the sleigh bells is important to outline the bells the innkeeper is haunted by. The ending is rather short and rather unsatisfying with not enough explanation of what happens at the end. Overall not bad but not really more than average.