A [favourite] horror comedy*. This post goes out to Max Linder, who – together with his wife Hélène “Ninette” Peters – took his own life 100 years ago, on October 31, 1925.

 

Max (Max Linder) bets that he can spend one whole hour in a haunted castle without calling for help. In face of all the (in camera!) terrors, Max faces his fears with ease. Until, just minutes before the clock strikes midnight, the phone rings.

“Strange things are happening today.”

– title card

And there was this other bet. One between Linder and director Abel Gance. Linder bet that Gance would not be able to shoot a movie in only three days. With ghosts, skeletons, and wildlife galore, the result is a delightful Grand Guignol à la Max.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.

The words “world peace” are spoken on Peace Day aka International Day of Peace

TV reporter: We are not alone in the world. An increase of national income in developing countries is absolute requirement for world peace at the end of this century.

Martti Tuomola: Bullshit.

Former child prodigy Olli Ruusunen (Antti Litja) has received special brain capacity training at the Buffalo Institute in the US. Paid for by a Finish company, the idea is that Olli will act as a “rationaliser”, drastically overhauling the inner workings of the company. After getting rid of the entire management team, Olli – like others who have gone through the same training program – becomes increasingly strange. Olli decides to disappear.

Depending on the language version you watch, you'll see a 1928 newspaper headline dated September 20 (a Thursday), January 10 (a Tuesday), or January 9 (a Monday).

 

Apples, or dumplings, for National Apple Dumpling Day (USA)

– What are you gonna do with tons of apples? They can't be sold! Ask any apple farmer! They just pile up and rot! – The apple farmers? – No. The apples!

A beautiful, picturesque part of Sweden will become… Deutschneyland! At least, that's the brilliant business plan Herr Volkswagner has. But the local apple farmers – a large family that's half human, half mythological creatures – have no need for an amusement park on their grounds.

On the International Day of Democracy, the word “democracy” is spoken.

“Stop shooting! Stop democracy!”

– Person Nr. 1

The Gestapo arrives to liquidate the inmates of a mental hospital. Then Windisch, plainclothes Nazi, brings them a letter: there's a special commando hiding amidst the 583 patients. Interrogating them slowly pushes Windisch among them.

Chocolate for International Chocolate Day (Milton S. Hershey's birthday)

“In all my years of practice, I've never seen anything so sweet. A rosebud.”

– Dr. Mittelfinger

Miss Canada, winner of the “most virgin” contest, escapes her rich, milk tycoon husband into a world of anarchy, lust, and sugar.

A skyscraper for Skyscraper Day (USA)

 

In the sequel to Rouch's Jaguar (1967), Damouré wants a high rise for his Niger business with “as many floors as he has wives”. He decides to travel to Paris to learn about the construction of such building, and what made Paris to the Paris of today. While there, he gets distracted by the peculiarities of the French natives. Worried about Damouré's increasingly puzzling postcards, his company sends out Lam (Lam Ibrahim Dia) to bring him home.

A teacher for what would have been Christa McAuliffe's birthday.

“Ich mag Männer, bin 30 Jahre alt, von Beruf Lehrer.”

– Frank Ripploh

Frank Ripploh is a sexual ethics and biology teacher by day, and hedonistic gay man and aspiring pornographer by night. When Frank Ripploh, the man, publicly came out in 1978 in the tabloid Stern, he lost his teaching job and did become that filmmaker. Taxi zum Klo – litt. taxi to the john/loo – is his story. A frank pre-AIDS pre-Internet pre-victimhood depiction of male gay culture in West Germany. Maybe raw, possibly misogynist, definitely true to life.