''The Beetle'' is a 1919 British silent

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

directed by

Alexander Butler Alexander Butler was a British film director who made over sixty features and short films during the 1910s and 1920s including many for G. B. Samuelson's production company. Butler directed several British films in Hollywood in 1920, where Samuel ...

and starring

Leal Douglas Leal Douglas (born Lilly Elizabeth Annie Lamb; 25 March 1881 – 3 February 1970) was a British-Australian actress, mainly of the silent film era. Of Scottish and English parents, Douglas emigrated to Australia as a child and began her stag ...

Maudie Dunham Maudie Dunham (1902 in Doddinghurst, Essex - 1982) was a British actress. Filmography * '' The Beetle'' (1919) * '' The Winning Goal'' (1920) * ''The Ugly Duckling'' (1920) * '' Love in the Wilderness'' (1920) * ''The Night Riders'' (1920) * ' ...

, Hebden Foster and Fred Morgan. It was based on the 1897 novel '' The Beetle: A Mystery'' by Richard Marsh. The 1897 novel went into print a few months after Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' hit bookshelves, and it outsold ''Dracula'' at the time. It has since passed into relative obscurity, although it seems to have served as Stoker's inspiration for his 1903 ''

The Jewel of Seven Stars ''The Jewel of Seven Stars'' is a horror novel by Irish writer Bram Stoker, first published by Heinemann in 1903. The story is a first-person narrative of a young man pulled into an archaeologist's plot to revive Queen Tera, an ancient Egypt ...

'', which also involved an ancient Egyptian princess reincarnating into the body of a modern-day woman. Director Alexander Butler went on to an acting role in the similarly themed 1925 film ''

She She most commonly refers to: *She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English. She or S.H.E. may also refer to: Literature and films *'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagga ...

''.

Jonathan Rigby Jonathan Rigby is an English actor and film historian who has written several books. ''Video Watchdog'' magazine described him as occupying "a proud place in the advance guard of film researchers, writers and critics," and in 2020 he was inducted ...

has called

’s High Priestess “the polymorphous title role”.

Plot

An Ancient Egyptian princess (

) transforms herself into a

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

in order to gain revenge on Paul Lessingham, a British

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

.Rigby p.16 The creature can change its form, appearing as a man, a woman or a beetle. Lessingham seeks the aid of another man, who is a rival for the affections of a young woman they love, to aid him in his fight against the supernatural being that is haunting him.

Cast

as High Priestess *

as Dora Greyling * Hebden Foster as Paul Lessingham * Fred Morgan as Neces *

Frank Reade Frank Reade was the protagonist of a series of dime novels published primarily for boys. The first novel, ''Frank Reade and His Steam Man of the Plains'', an imitation of Edward S. Ellis, Edward Ellis's ''The Steam Man of the Prairies'' (1868), w ...

as Sidney Atherton *

Rolf Leslie Rolf Leslie was a British actor born in Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, UK. Selected filmography * ''Sixty Years a Queen'' (1913) * '' East Lynne'' (1913) * '' Lights of London'' (1914) * ''Jane Shore'' (1915) * '' The Faith of a Child'' (191 ...

as Holt *

Nancy Kenyon Nancy may refer to: Places France * Nancy, France, a city in the northeastern French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle and formerly the capital of the duchy of Lorraine ** Arrondissement of Nancy, surrounding and including the city of Nancy ...

as Marjorie Lindon

References

Bibliography

* Low, Rachael. ''History of the British Film, 1918-1929''. George Allen & Unwin, 1971. * Rigby, Jonathan. ''English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema''. Reynolds & Hearn, 2004.

External links

* 1919 films 1919 horror films 1910s fantasy films British horror films British silent feature films Films directed by Alexander Butler Films based on British novels Films set in London British black-and-white films 1910s English-language films 1910s British films Silent horror films {{1910s-horror-film-stub