Emil Jannings
Harun al-Rashid: Jannings plays the role of the pot-bellied Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the Arabian Nights tale.
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Synopsis
A writer hired by a wax museum invents stories for three of its figures: a caliph, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. He imagines himself and the proprietor's daughter inside their adventures. Comic jealousy gives way to tyranny and nightmare as the boundary between the exhibits and the storyteller's imagination begins to dissolve.
Cast
Behind the scenes
Paul Leni brings Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss together in an anthology of sharply different moods. A planned fourth episode, centred on the fictional outlaw Rinaldo Rinaldini, was not completed, leaving the surviving film with three stories linked by the museum setting.
Sources and availability
The synopsis and editorial text were written for this collection. The references below were cross-checked to identify the film and its copy; each editorial section identifies its reference.
Work catalogued as public domain in the United States.
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Availability checked on September 10, 2026.
Photograph credit
Photographs cropped, resized and optimized as WebP, displayed in monochrome.
- Emil Jannings — Unknown author · Public domain
