THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1913)
Article 3177 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-24-2010
Posting Date: 4-26-2010
Directed by Alice Guy
Featuring Darwin Karr, Fraunie Fraunholz, Blanche Cornwall
Country: USA
What it is: Fragment of a Poe adaptation

A thwarted suitor joins the Inquisition to get revenge on a romantic rival.

The only copy I’ve been able to find of this movie is a seven-minute one on Yahoo video, and I suspect it’s only a fragment. It sets up a backstory in which a man is framed for the theft by sorcery of church property, and given that this is discovered by the Inquisition, this no doubt leads to the man being tortured in the method described by the Poe story. The movie cuts off just as the the man is framed for the theft, which makes me suspect that this is just a fragment. I suppose this shouldn’t count, but it’s late at night and I don’t have time to watch another movie, so I’ll beg your indulgence on this one.