The Phantom Carriage (1921)

THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE  (1921)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Victor Sjöstrom
    Victor Sjöstrom, Astrid Holm, Tore Svennberg,
    Hilda Borgström, Concordia Selander, Lisa Lundholm
As midnight approaches on New Year's Eve, three derelicts huddle beneath a clock tower drinking wine, and one of them tells about a legend that the last man to die before the year ends must drive Death's carriage through the following year, picking up the souls of those whose lives have expired. Then something happens, and at the stroke of midnight, the man who just told the story dies. There's a radical shift in the main character toward the end that contradicts the film's otherwise grim fatalism, but the acting is believably naturalistic, and the use of double exposure in the carriage scenes is spooky. The movie had a significant influence on Ingmar Bergman, who apparently watched it at least once a year for most of his life. Sjöstrom went on to direct silent movies in America, and ended his career playing the old professor in Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" in 1957.