In 1925, not long after making Nosferatu - - still the most chilling of all Dracula movies - - German director FW Murnau tackled Molière's classic satire on religious hypocrisy. And in his hands it turns into a companion piece to Nosferatu, with Tartuffe (silent-era superstar Emil Jannings) a lumbering black-clad monster sucking the lifeblood out of his host Orgon's household, battening on their food and cash, his pious gaze slipping as he drools over the milky bosom of Orgon's wife Elmire. Jannings could often ham outrageously, but here his overweening presence, like a great black bug amid the creamy baroque interiors, carries just the right weight of creepy menace. A modern-day prologue and epilogue don't add much, but the main story finds Murnau, his art-historical training well to the fore, creating one of his most elegant movies.
DVD Extras:
An informative if ponderous 37-minute doc, a16-page booklet with a thoughtful essay by film historian R Dixon Smith and a stills gallery.
