Review of The Phantom Wagon (1939) by George M — 28 Feb 2012

Really ahead of its time. There's a complex narrative structure for its age that begins by an unexplained event (the dying nurse asking for someone to visit her) that slowly gains in significance as the relations between the characters unfold through flashbacks.

There's even a flashback within a flashback here (well, kind of), and we are speaking about 1921. Amazing mise en scene that greatly helps the atmosphere and the acting is superb! Not the ultra stylistic acting that one can find in films of the period; here it is raw and almost naturalistic at times (especially Victor Siostrom himself).

As a whole the film hasn't aged a bit, except for its montage which makes the rhythm drag to a point of becoming cumbersome at times. Well, it seems that believing montage to be the greatest technique of the cinema wasn't just an idea of the early Soviet filmmakers.

Also, the moralistic ending and the Christmas-Carol-like twist in the end do not resonate well today. Still, one cannot but admire this film for what it achieves in narrative and visual splendor with its super imposition effects and the moody cinematography.

Oh, and the axe scene in Kubrick's The Shining seems to owe much to this film too...