Jon Mirsalis on Piano Preceded by: The Nightmare (Nocni des): This farce with an Expressionist touch is from a script by writer and early film theorist Frantisek Langer. Domestic squabbles over infidelity lead to a whodunit akin to Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry, where there are no victims or accusers, only guilt-ridden innocents. Directed by Jan Arnold Palous. Written by Frantisek Langer. Photographed by Max Urban. (Czechoslovakia, 1914, 25 mins (18 fps), Silent with Czech intertitles, Live English translation, Piano accompaniment, Tinted, 35mm) (Prichozi z temnot). Shot on location among the lush precipices and eccentric ruins of a storybook castle, Visitor from Darkness invokes a supernatural ménage à trois. A young couple living in opulent isolation are delivered an alchemical manuscript by a malevolent visitor. Under its spell, a somnambulant chevalier, discovered amidst the secret passages of the tower ruins, awakens to draw our heroine back in time-to the Renaissance, and days of romantic love. This is the best of a series of popular mystery films pairing filmmaker Karel Lamac and actress Anny Ondrakova (later, Anny Ondra) in the lead roles.