{
  "title": "THE CART OF DEATH",
  "category": "[NOVEL]",
  "article": "[Encyclopedia of Fantasy] “In Korkarlen (1912; translated by W. F. Harvey as Thy Soul Shall\nBear Witness! 1921 UK) she portrays the emissary of Death who on a New Year’s Eve comes\ndriving his old cart into a small town to collect the spirits of the dead.”\nThe novel has been filmed thrice, first in Sweden in  1921 by Victor Sjostrom (this version is\nvariously known as The Phantom Carriage, The Stroke of Midnight, and Thy Soul Shall Bear\nWitness), and later by Julien Duvivier (La charrette fantome, 1939) and Arne Mattsson  (1958).\n“…she called it 'my Christmas Carol', recognising her debt to Dickens. Sjostrom directs himself\nas a drunken reprobate given the chance on New Year's Eve to change his life instead of being\ncondemned to drive a horse-drawn hearse. This moving, innovative picture, which Bergman\nwatched every year…”Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness was a primary influence on the gothicisms of\nIngmar Bergman.\n“David Holm is angry and destitute, a disabled unemployed glass blower with a wife and two\nchildren. He gets drunk in the bad parts of town with his friends Georges, Pierre, and others. It's\nNew Year's eve, and Georges tells of the legend that Death has a phantom cart that the dying can\nhear rolling towards them, and whosoever dies New Year's midnight must take Death's job on the\ncart for the coming year. Georges is so frightened of dying at midnight that he gets lost, falls off a\nroof, and dies. David finds shelter from the cold at a brand new Salvation Army shelter, where\npretty young Sister Edith greets him as the blessed first visitor. She hopes to reform the rough\nDavid, and she makes him promise to return to her in a year. David leaves angrily, and in the\ncoming months Edith tracks him down to learn more about his hostile life, including how he beats\nhis wife and starts fights in the bars. By the next winter, David resents his promise to visit Edith,\nand he goes to a graveyard where he is killed in a fight. Georges rides up in the cart of Death,\nwishing to teach David regret. As phantoms they visit David's wife, who is about to poison herself\nand the children. David is horrified, but then Georges takes David to Sister Edith, who is dying\nfrom the flu. David begs another chance, and Georges agrees to keep Death's job another year so\nDavid can return to rescue his family. With Sister Edith's ghost by his side, David sheds tears for\nthe first time, and his wife takes him back in time.\n“The appearances of Death with the transparent cart are subsequently all the more haunting,\nespecially when Death calls spirits to rise from their bodies with the command \"Prisoner, come\nout of your Prison\".",
  "origination": "",
  "duration": "",
  "personnel": "",
  "extant_recordings": "",
  "chronology": "(NATIONAL PROGRAMME, LONDON—BBC)\n[Friday—10:00-10:45 PM]\nDecember 28, 1934\n“The Cart of Death”\nSCRIPT: Marianne Helweg (translator, scriptwriter).\nPERSONNEL: M. H. Allen (producer).\nCAST: Ruth Anderson, John Cheatle, Edward Craven, Roy Emerton, Gwendolen\nEvans, Winifred Evans, Wallace Evenett, Marne Maitland, Mary O’Farrell, Janet\nTaylor, Gladys Young.",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}