‘That Sleepy Hollow was a haunted and most superstitious region, Ichabod Crane had often heard, but he little dreamed how soon he was to encounter the famous chief of its legions of ghosts - a mysterious Headless Horseman.’
The Headless Horseman from 1922 follows the legend of Sleepy Hollow quite accurately. The story is about schoolmaster Ichabod Crane who hopes to marry Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of a rich farmer, so that he can get his hands on her inheritance. Now it sounds a bit like he is a gold digger, but this story takes place in 1790. It was quite common at that time to marry for money or status. But Ichabod Crane has a rival; Brom Bones. Bones does not shy away from chasing Crane and he makes clever use of the superstition of our schoolmaster.
Before writer Washington Irving wrote a short story with this theme in 1820, stories about various different headless ghost riders were circulating. Poets Robert Burns and Gottfried August Bürger already wrote poems at the end of 1700 about it. That this theme was, and still is, extremely popular, is evident from the fact that there are about 25 film and television adaptations, 15 drama and musical versions, 13 audio recordings and several songs are made. And there would’ve undoubtedly been many more theater performances before 1900. It is also still popular today during Halloween.
Although a rider with his head on his saddle rather than on his torso is a very good theme for a scary horror film, this first film version of 'The Headless Horseman' is anything but horror. At the beginning we are briefly introduced to this ghost rider, but we have to wait until the last six minutes before he shows up again. It is also one of the few moments where the film get’s exiting. For an hour and four minutes we see a bumbling Ichabod (a name that appropriately means without any glory) Brom who is more of a bully and a Katrina who flirts with almost everybody. What I can imagine if you have the choice between marrying a bumbler and marrying a tormentor who sometimes goes a bit too far.
Crane's bumbling is meant to be funny, but he is rather sad than funny. Bones is supposed to be the villain in this story, but his childish behavior only irritates me. However, one scene in which his behavior takes malignant proportions and Crane has to be rescued creates some excitement. And Katrina ... well, what shall I say, she is 18, what does she know.
All pluses and minuses are added together, in addition to one very funny scene that takes place in a church, there are 13 exciting minutes in this film. This movie could best be described as a drama. Although the acting performances are not to write home about and the direction of Edward D. Venturini also leaves something to be desired, it is mostly story-wise the most dramatic story of love. Venturini would have done better if he’d let Will Rogers, who plays Ichabod Crane, act less comically, Ben Hendrick Jr., who plays Brom Bones, have more malicious features and let Lois Meredith, who plays Katrina, give more content to her character. What more screen time for her could not have hurt anyway because the proverb 'the eye also wants something' is of all times, even in the 'me too' era of today. I would like to say the same for Ben Hendrick Jr., but he already had a bigger role. More of him would be overkill.
Feels very good actually to tell 96 years after the film was made an already 58 year dead director how he could have done better. Actually, this is also a good reason to watch a movie, even if it gets bad reviews and an insufficient one.
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