It is midnight in Spain. The Black Plague is sweeping across the country. Youth (Adolph Bolm) and Love (Ruth Page), run to the believed safety of a castle to escape. In the castle they dance and assume they are safe from Death (Olin Howland).
In the shadows, however, Death plays his violin and waits for his chance. Eventually, Love becomes ill, and Youth is helpless to do anything about it. Death patiently waits.
“Danse Macabre” was released in 1922 and was directed by Dudley Murphy. It is an American silent horror short. The film was conceived by Russian born-American ballet dancer and choreographer Adolph Bolm.
Although the film has horror at its core, the emphasis is on dance and music. At only eight minutes long, the film combines music, dance and visual effects to illustrate a story. The story is based on the symphonic poem, “Danse Macabre” or Opus 40 written in 1874 by French composer Camille Saint-Saens. Choreographer Bolm incorporated the dance movements and also plays the male character. Special effects include matte painting, animation and an effect referred to as superimposition or the layering of images on top of each other.
In the film the devil, or death, plays the violin. In lore the violin, or fiddle, is usually played at dances, weddings and other festivities. These are usually also associated with drinking, an abundance of food and general merriment. Also, the types of music played are generally associated with frivolity. The devil ended up getting blamed for people losing their inhibitions. Painters and other artists incorporated these images in their works further cementing the correlation between violin music and what religious leaders referred to as “The Devil’s Instrument”.
Director Murphy did a series of twelve shorts that were referred to as "visual symphonies". Each short was set to a different piece of classical music and were a synchronization of film and music. They were visual interpretations of classical music done in collaboration with others. They were very avant-garde for their day. Danse Macabre was the first film in the series.
Bolm’s co-star, Ruth Page was an American ballerina. Olin Howland, who played Death, also played the old man who was consumed by the alien entity in “The Blob” 1958. His career spanned forty years in film, television and theater.