The Raven

1915 DramaHorror 80 minutes Directed by Charles Brabin

Open in new tab

About The Raven

The film follows Edgar Allan Poe from the deaths of his parents and his adoption by John and Frances Allan in Richmond, through gambling debts at the University of Virginia, to his marriage to Virginia Clemm. Allan, faced with the bills, calls him a scoundrel and puts him out. In a poor cottage at Fordham, Virginia dies of tuberculosis. Poe then takes Sarah Helen Whitman for Virginia returned, recites “The Raven” while a bird answers “Nevermore,” and dies as the hallucinations close.

Cast & crew

More about The Raven

Charles Brabin wrote the scenario and directed, from George C. Hazelton's play The Raven: The Love Story of Edgar Allan Poe. Essanay produced it, and V-L-S-E distributed it. The release date was November 8, 1915. Henry B. Walthall plays Poe.

Themes

  • a foster father's bills
  • Virginia's illness
  • a poem staged as a hallucination
  • mistaking another woman for the dead wife
  • Edgar Allan Poe
  • Virginia Clemm
  • The Raven
  • University of Virginia
  • John Allan
  • Fordham
  • Nevermore

Background

Hazelton's play treated Poe's life as a love story ending in the poem. Brabin's film keeps that shape, including the Richmond years and the Fordham death of Virginia.

Making

Essanay built the biography as a star vehicle for Walthall, staging Poe's life and then a long hallucination built around the poem.

Preservation

A print survives and is on the Internet Archive.

Notes

  • Warda Howard plays Virginia Clemm, Helen Whitman, the Lost Lenore, and a spirit.
  • Ernest Maupain plays John Allan, and Grant Foreman plays publisher George Rex Graham.
  • Poe buys an enslaved man, listed in the credits only as “Negro” and played by Bert Weston, with an IOU for $600 after seeing him whipped.
  • Virginia secretly switches a wreath so that Poe, not his friend Tony, wins her.
  • A copy is on the Internet Archive under the identifier silent-the-raven.

Scenes

  • A raven lands on Poe's shoulder as he finishes a fairy tale for Virginia.
  • Virginia moves the wreath so Poe wins her choice over Tony.
  • His wine glass turns into a skull, and the raven answers every question with “Nevermore.”

Influenced by

  • George C. Hazelton's play The Raven: The Love Story of Edgar Allan Poe
  • Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven

Also available

  • Internet Archive (silent-the-raven)

Quotes

Nevermore.

More from Charles Brabin

View all →