. Melodrama in its most extreme, operatic form can be hopelessly entertaining and invigorating, as any devotee of silent cinema can attest, and the wondrously pulpy Tonka of the Gallows is no exception. The dazzling lead actress of Machatý's Erotikon stars as Tonka, a doe-eyed big-city prostitute who exchanges her fancy clothes for simple peasant dress when she returns home for a summer's idyll of windmills, flute-playing shepherds, and kisses with her small-town lover, Jan. Unfortunately she must return to the brothel, and soon makes an even more unfortunate decision: to accompany a condemned man on his last night. Now nicknamed “Tonka of the gallows,” she finds her career destroyed, and her life in ruins; can love save her from the streets, or death? One of silent cinema's great “undiscovered” melodramas, Tonka of the Gallows depicts one human's descent into hell with an Expressionist flair worthy of Murnau, pulling off enough nightmarish double-exposure cinematic tricks to rival The Last Laugh.