The Cabinet of Caligari
Motorist Jane Lindstrom (Glynis Johns) has a tire blowout and seeks assistance at an estate owned by Caligari (Dan O'Herlihy), a very polite man with a Welsh accent. After spending the night there, she finds that Caligari will not let her leave; he proceeds to ask some personal questions and shows her pictures that offend her. Prevented by guards from leaving and unable to use the telephone, Jane seeks allies among the other guests. She finds only three possible candidates: the older Paul, the younger Mark (Dick Davalos), for whom she has romantic desires, and a lively elderly woman named Ruth (Estelle Winwood). After seeing Ruth tortured, Jane goes to Paul who convinces her to confront Caligari. Jane does so and tries to seduce him, as she suspects he has been spying on her in the bath. After her attempts fail, Caligari reveals that he and Paul are one and the same person, Jane runs down a corridor of wildly shifting imagery that acts as a transition. Finally, it is revealed that Jane is a mental patient and everything the audience has seen up to this point has been her distortion of the institute she was in: the personal questions were psychoanalysis, the pictures were Rorschach blots, Ruth's torture was shock treatment, and even Caligari's coat of arms was a distorted version of the medical caduceus symbol. Cured, Jane is taken from the asylum by Mark, now revealed to be her son.
