Cagliostro

Cagliostro is a lurid tale of magic and secret societies during the reign of Luis XVI, centred on the figure of the Italian occultist Giuseppe Balsamo, known under his alias of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro. The book owes its style of presentation to the example of German expressionist cinema, of the kind exemplified by The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. In the early 1920s, Vicente Huidobro-always fascinated by the new medium of film-wrote a film script on the subject of Cagliostro, in a treatment apparently very much in tune with the German expressionist cinema of the era. The film was apparently shot in 1923 by the Romanian director Mime Mizu but it was scrapped due to dissatisfaction over the editing. No trace of the film survives, although there are three pages from a script in the author's papers. A revised version of the script was submitted to The League for Better Motion Pictures in New York and won a $10,000 award as the best candidate for filming. Alas for the author, this was just at the point when the "talkies" arrived and this style of film-making was immediately rendered outmoded. However, the novella, which has many cinematic elements, was published in English translation in 1931 in both London and New York, to positive reviews. It appeared in the original Spanish only in 1934, in Santiago, Chile, where it had no impact at all. This edition reproduces the text of the 1931 translation. "[This book] is my answer to the question whether the cinematograph can influence the novel." (Vicente Huidobro)