The Headless Horseman (1922)

Directed by

Edward D. Venturini

Genre

horror film, silent film, ghost film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 08m

Rating

5.2 of 10 from 9 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This silent film adaptation follows a superstitious schoolteacher in a small Dutch settlement who becomes the target of a legendary phantom rider. The story focuses on his rivalry for a woman's affection and his growing fear of the headless horseman.

datedslowcampystaticghostlyrudimentarylow-budgetatmospheric

What happens

The Headless Horseman is a 1922 American silent film adaptation of Washington Irving's 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" directed by Edward D. Venturini. It stars Will Rogers, Lois Meredith (in her last major on-screen appearance) and Ben Hendricks Jr. It was the first panchromatic black-and-white feature film. There were three silent film adaptations of the story, but this 1922 version is the longest of the three, as well as the only one that survives today. Film critic Christopher Workman states: "The obvious day-for-night shooting foreshadows the work of Edward D. Wood Jr. [The film] is a motion picture that wavers between irritating and flat-out dull." He says the Headless Horseman only appears in two all-too-brief sequences in the film, once at the beginning and again in the finale. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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