THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1917) see Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray

PIERRETTE'S DREAM (1908/Pathe) 885 feet. Hand Coloured. Silent. France.
Features a magic talisman and a witch.

PILLOW OF DEATH (1945/Universal) 66mins. BW. US. Released Feb. 11th.'46.
Credits: Dir: Wallace Fox; Prod: Ben Pivar; Sc: George Bricker; Ph: Jerome Ash; Ed: Edward Curtiss; Art: John B. Goodman & Abraham Grossman; Sets: Russell A. Gausman & Leigh Smith; Mu: Jack P. Pierce; Tech: Jess Moulin; Mus: Frank Skinner. From a story by Dwight V. Babcock.
Cast: Lon Chaney Jnr., Brenda Joyce, J. Edward Bromberg, Rosalind Ivan, Clara Blandick, George Cleveland, Wilton Graff, Bernard B. Thomas, J. Farrell MacDonald, Harry Strang, Lee Phelps. Voice of Victoria Horne.
Belle Kincaid, (Blandick), a student of the occult, consults regulary with her psychic investigator Julian Julian, (Bromberg), to produce manifestations of her dead descendents. Belle's neice Donna, (Joyce), falls in love with lawyer Wayne Fletcher, (Chaney), whose wife Vivian is also an occultist, but when Vivian is found murdered by asphyxiation, Fletcher is haunted by her accusing voice and embarks on a series of "pillow killings" under her orders.
The last of the Inner Sanctum Mystery series produced by arrangment with Simon & Schuster Inc. ended on an undistinguished note.
Although credited, Fern Emmett never appeared in the final print.

PIMPLE SEES GHOSTS (1915/Piccadilly) 1013 feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir & Sc: Fred Evans & Joe Evans.
Cast: Fred Evans. A gathering of phoney ghosts scare Pimple.
A vehicle for one of the silent era's most successful comedians who co-directed and co-wrote almost all of his films with his younger brother Joe until 1917 when his appeal began to fade.

PIMPLE'S INFERNO (1913/Folly Films) 720 feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir & Sc: Fred Evans & Joe Evans.
Cast: Fred Evans.
After reading Dante's Inferno, Pimple dreams of a Hell full of suffragettes and film comedians.

PIMPLE'S MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1916/Piccadilly) 805 feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir & Sc: Fred Evans & Joe Evans.
Cast: Fred Evans.
After eating a lobster, Pimple suffers from a nightmare about cannibals.

A PIPE DREAM (1905/Biograph) 65 feet. BW. Silent. US.
A lady blows smoke in her hand causing a miniature man to appear and disappear.

PIQUE DAME (1927/Phoebus Film) BW. Silent. Germany. Aka: QUEEN OF SPADES.
Credits: Dir: Alexander Rasumny. From the story "Pikovala Dama" by Alexander Pushkin.
Cast: Rudolf Forester, Alexandra Schmitt, Max Schreck.
An aging Countess once sold her soul to the Devil in exchange for the secret of winning at cards. A man who scares her to death to obtain her secret is haunted by her ghost.

PIQUE DAME (1937/Hoffberg) 100mins. BW. France. Aka: THE QUEEN OF SPADES.
Credits: Dir: Feyodor Otzep; Prod: Michel Kagansky & Christian Stengal; Sc: Bernard Zimmer; Ph: A. Thirard & Louis Nee. From the story "Pikovaya Dama" by Alexander Pushkin.
Cast: Pierre Blanchar, Andre Luquet, Marguerite Moreno, Madaleine Ozeray, Abel Jacquin, Camille Bert.
The first sound rendition of Alexander Pushkin's famous story.

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1910) see Le Puits et le Penduele

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1913/Solax) 5 reels. BW. Silent.
Credits: Dir: Alice Guy-Blanche. From the story by Edgar Allan Poe.
Cast: Darwin Karr, Blanche Cornwall, Fraunie Fraunholz, Joseph Levering.
Someone attempts to drive the son of a notorious murderer insane by making him believe his wife has died and then returned to life.

THE PLAGUE IN FLORENCE (1919) see Pest in Florenz

PLUNDER (1922/Pathe) Serial. 15 Chapters. BW. Silent. US.
Credits: Dir. & Prod: George B. Seitz; Sc: Bertam Millhauser & George B. Seitz.
From a story by Herbert Crooker.
Cast: Pearl White, Harry Semels, Warren Krech.
Features a giant octopus and a menacing gorilla.
This is Pearl White's last serial, and some say her least memorable, before she retired to live in France until her death in 1938.

POCOMANIA (1939/Lenwal) 65mins. BW. US. Aka: THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER.
Credits: Dir. & Prod: Arthur H. Leonard; Sc: George Terwilliger; Ph: Jay Rescher; Ed: Datlowe Mus: John Killman.
Cast: Nina Mae McKinney, Hamtree Harrington, Jack Carter, Ida James, Willia Mae Lane, Emmett Lawrence.
"A burning drama of love and hate in the tropics".
Sylvia Walton arrives from Harlem to take control of a Jamaica plantation thet she has inherited, but Isabella, her half-sister, uses native voodoo rituals to have her revenge after being disinherited.
An all black re-make of the voodoo thriller Ouanga (1935), filmed in Jamaica.
McKinney was sometimes referred to as "The Black Garbo".

THE POET'S VISION (1909/Gaumont) 350 feet. BW. Silent. France.
Credits: Prod: George Kleine.
A phantom spirit takes a poet back several centuries in time.

THE POISON PEN (1919/World) 5 reels. BW. Silent. US.
Credits: Dir: Edwin August; Sc: J.Clarkson Miller. From a story by Edwin August.
Cast: June Elvidge, Earle Metcalfe, Joseph Smiley, George Bunny, George Bunny, Marion Barney, Jeanne Loew, Irving Brooks.
A patient with a split personality is cured by hypnosis and strange "violet" rays.

POLIDOR AL CLUB DELLA MORTE (1912/Pasquali) 1 reel. BW. Silent. Italy.
Aka: POLIDOR, A MEMBER OF THE DEATH CLUB; POLIDOR AT THE DEATH CLUB.
Cast: Fernando Guillame.

POLIDOR AT THE DEATH CLUB (1912) see Polidor al Club della Morte

A POOR KNIGHT AND THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER (1908/Gaumont) 820 feet. Tinted. Silent. France.
A witch conjures up a fake vision to deceive a Duke's daughter.

THE PORTRAIT OF DOLLY GREY (1916/Kineto) 1960 feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir: Walter R. Booth.
A Lord of the Realm hypnotises a model to become a revue star, but his efforts are thwarted when a poster of Satan comes to life.

PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948/Vanguard/Selznick/RKO.) 86mins. BW. (Tinted sequence) US.
Aka: JENNIE (UK).
Credits: Dir: William Dieterle; Prod: David O. Selznick; Sc: Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn & Leonard Bernovici; Ph: Joseph August; Ed: William Morgan & Gerald Wilson; Art: J. McMillan Johnson & Joseph P. Blatt; Sfx: Clarence Slifer; Mus: Dimitri Tiomkin. From a novel by Robert Nathan.
Cast: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, David Wayne, Lillian Gish, Henry Hull, Florence Bates, Cecil Kellaway, Albert Sharpe, Felix Bressart.
"There is no life, my darling, until you love and have been loved. And then there is no death."- Jennie.
Penniless artist Eben Adams, (Cotten), meets a young girl named Jennie, (Jones), in New York's Central Park who stirs his artistic inspiration, but every time he meets her she has aged and talks of subjects from long ago. Adams paints her portrait and falls in love with her only to discover that she has been dead for many years after perishing in a tidal wave at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. When Jennie tells him she is going to Cape Cod for a holiday, Eben frantically rushes to the area on the anniversary of her death, hoping to save her, but during a terrific storm that mysteriously hits the coast, Adams sees Jenny one last time.
A superbly crafted romantic ghost story in which the cast overcomes the love, life and death pretentions. Several images haunt the imagination long after an initial viewing.
Originally the last reel was tinted green and the final scene was shown in Technicolor.
The special effects won an Academy Award.

LE PORTRAIT SPIRITE (1903/Star Film) 145feet. BW. Silent. France.
Aka: A SPIRITUALIST PHOTOGRAPHER.
Credits: Georges Melies.
The portrait of a woman comes alive and she steps out of the frame.

PORTRET DORIANA GREJA (1915) 6964 feet. BW. Silent. Russia.
Aka: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY.
Credits: Dir. & Sc: Vsevolod Meyerhold; Ph: Alexander Levitsky; Art: Vladimir Yegorov.
From the novel by Oscar Wilde.
Cast: Varvara Yanova, Vsevolod Meyerhold.
Dorian Gray retains his youthful appearance, but his portrait ages.

LA POSADA SANGRIENTA (1941/Calderon) Mexico. Aka: THE BLOODY INN.
Credits: Dir: Fernando A. Rivero; Sc: Mario de Lara; Ph: Ross Fisher.
From a story by Ernesto Cortazar.
Cast: David Silva, Gloria Marin, Miguel Inclan, Alfredo Varela.

POSSESSED (1947/Warner Bros.) 108mins. BW. US.
Credits: Dir: Curtis Bernhardt; Prod: Jerry Wald; Sc: Silvia Richards & Ranald MacDougall; Ph: Joseph Valentine; Ed: Rudi Fehr; Art: Anton Grot; Mus: Franz Waxman.
From the novel "One Man's Secret" by Rita Weiman.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Raymond Massey, Van Heflin, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges, John Ridgley, Moroni Olsen, Douglas Kennedy.
An emotionally unstable nurse, (Crawford), marries her employer, but still passionately loves an engineer who she kills when he does not respond to her advances.
The story is revealed when the distraught nurse is taken to a psychiatric hospital.
Joan Crawford received an Academy Award Nomination for her performance in this moody drama.

THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE (1913/Essanay) 2 reels. BW. Silent. US.
Credits: Dir: Leopold Wharton.
Cast: Francis X. Bushman.
A man's conscience appears to him as his double.

THE POWER OF DARKNESS (1922) see Die Macht der Fisternis

POWER OF EVIL (1929) 6300 feet. BW. Silent. Russia.
Credits: Dir: M. Goldvani & P. Barkhoudian.
Cast: Barbara Matatian. A girl is murdered by a witch when her head is shoved into a pot of burning coals.

THE POWER OF THE WHISTLER (1945/Columbia) 66mins. BW. US.
Credits: Dir: Lew Landers; Prod: Leonard S. Picker; Sc: Aubrey Wisberg; Ph: L.W. Carter; Ed: Reginald Browne; Art: John Datu; Mus: Wilbur Hatch. Suggested by the CBS radio programme "The Whistler".
Cast: Richard Dix, Janis Carter, Jeff Donnell, Loren Tindall, Tala Birell, John Abbott, Murray Alper.
A woman, (Carter), attempts to help an amnesiac, (Dix), discover his identity only to find that he is an escaped psychotic killer.
A drawn out entry to the WHISTLER film series with moments that are suitably eerie.

PREHISTORIC MAN (1908/Urban/Eclipse) 3000 feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir: Walter R. Booth.
An artist's drawing of a prehistoric man come to life and chases the artist until he manages to draw a prehistoric monster that also comes to life and eats the prehistoric man.

THE PREHISTORIC MAN (1917/Star) BW. Silent. Hungary.
Credits: Dir: Alfred Desy; Sc: Zoltan Somlyo & Erno Gyori.
Strange rays cause a monkey to become as intelligent as a human, but the anilmal begins to lusts after a woman and manages to attain political power. Eventually the monkey is restored to it's original state.

PRELUDE (1927/Knight) 600feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir. & Sc: Castleton Knight. From the story "The Premature Burial" by Edgar Allan Poe.
Cast: Castleton Knight.
After listening to Rachmanioff's "Prelude", a man dreams of being buried alive.

A PRESENT FROM INDIA (1911/Hepworth) 350 feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir: Frank Wilson; Prod: Cecil M. Hepworth.
A white man touches an Indian idol and it transforms into a magician.

UN PRETÉ POUR UN RENDU; OU, UNE BONNE FARCE AVEC MA TETE (1903) BW. Silent. France. Aka: TIT FOR TAT; OR, A GOOD JOKE WITH MY HEAD.
Credits: Georges Méliès.
Melies makes his head disappear by putting it in a box. The head leaves the box and spits water on Méliès.

PREVIEW MURDER MYSTERY (1936/Paramount) 65mins. BW. US.
Credits: Dir: Robert Florey; Prod: Harold Hurley; Ex.Prod: Adolph Zukor; Sc: Brian Marlow & Robert Yost; Ph: Karl Struss; Ed: James Smith; Art: Hans Dreier & Earl Hedrick.
From a story by Garnett Weston.
Cast: Reginald Denny, Frances Drake, Gail Patrick, Rod La Roque, Ian Keith, George Barbier, Conway Tearle, Jack Raymond, Eddie Dunn, Bryant Washburn, Lee C. Shumway, Chester Conklin, Jack Mulhall.
A series of murders take place on the set of a vampire movie.
A comedy mystery thriller that also features a television set and comic quips from former silent star Conklin.

THE PRICE OF SILENCE (1921/Sunrise) 65mins. (6000 feet). BW. Silent. US.
Aka: AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS.
Credits: Dir: Fred Leroy Granville; Ph: Leland Lancaster. From the story "At the Mercy of Tiberius" by Augusta Jane Evans Wilson.
Cast: Peggy Hyland, Campbell Gullan, Tom Chatterton, Dorothy Gordon, Daisy Robinson, Van Dycke.
A girl accused of killing her grandfather is saved from imprisonment when it is discovered that lightening has imprinted the murderer's image on a window pain.

THE PRIMITIVE MAN (1912-13) see Brute Force

THE PRIMROSE RING (1917/Lasky/Paramount) 5 reels. BW. Silent. US.
Credits: Dir: Robert Leonard; Sc: Marion Fairfax & Catherine Carr; Ph: Charles Rosher.
Based on a story by Ruth Sawyer.
Cast: Mae Murray, Tom Moore, Winter Hall.
In a children's hospital, a nurse relates the story of a giant ogre named Pain to the young patients.

THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1902/Biograph) BW. Silent. US.
The Grim Reaper frightens a man to death.

THE PRINCE OF TEMPTERS (1926/First National) 8 reels. BW. Silent. US.
Credits: Dir: Lothar Mendes; Sc: Paul Bern; Ph: Ernest Haller.
Based on "The Ex-Duke" by E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Cast: Lois Moran, Lya de Putti, Ben Lyon, Ian Keith, Mary Brian, J. Barney Sherry, Olive Tell, Sam Hardy.
Satan, (Keith), attempts to ruin a young man with the assistance of a promiscuous woman.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FISHERMAN (1909/Gaumont) 15mins. (900 feet). BW. Silent. US.
A witch gives a fisherman a castle and a beautiful princess on the condition that he returns to the witch whenever he hears the sound of a bugle. One day he fails to respond and the castle sinks into the ocean, drowning him and the princess.

THE PRINCESS IN THE VASE (1908/Biograph) 938 feet. BW. Silent. US.
Credits: Dir: D.W. Griffith; Ph: William "Billy" Bitzer & Arthur Marvin.
Cast: D.W. Griffith
In ancient Egypt, a vision incriminates a princess' adulterous affair. In contemporary Egypt, an Egyptologist dreams that the cremated Egyptian princess is reincarnated from her own ashes in a shattered vase.

THE PRINCESS OF BAGDAD (1913/Helgar Corporation) 6 reels. US.
Credits: Dir & Sc: Charles L. Gaskill.
Cast: Helen Gardner.
Features a genie and a magic lamp.

THE PRINCESS OF DARKNESS (1914/Aquila) BW. Silent.

PRISONERS OF THE TOWER (1946/D.U.K. Films) 34mins. BW. UK.
Credits: Dir: Cecil H. Williamson; Ph: Hugh Cecil.
Narrated by Valentine Dyall.
A ghost, (Dyall), narrates the history of the Tower of London.

PRIZAK BRODIT PO YEVROPE (1923/Vufku) 8630 feet. BW. Silent. Russia.
Aka: A SPECTRE HAUNTS EUROPE.
Credits: Dir: Vladimir R. Gardin; Sc: Georgi Tasin; Ph: Boris Zavelyov; Art: Vladimir Yegorov.
From "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe.
Cast: Zoya Barantsevich, Oleg Frolich, I. Talanov, Vasili Kovrigin.

THE PROFESSOR AND HIS WAXWORKS (1907/Williams/Brown/Earle) 650 feet (1 reel). BW. Silent. US.
Wax sculptures are endowed with life.

THE PROFESSOR CREEPS (1942/Dixie National Productions/Consolidated) 63mins. BW. US.
Credits: Dir: William Beaudine; Prod: Jed Buell; Sc: William X. Crowley, Roy Clements & Jed Buell; Ph: Arthur Martinelli; Ed: Dan Milner. From a story by Philip Marlowe.
Cast: F.E. Miller, Florence O'Brien, Mantan Moreland, Arthur Ray.
A private eye down on his luck gets involved in a case that leads to witchcraft, and an old dark house with a marauding gorilla.
A silly spooky house comedy with an all-black cast.

PROFESSOR GARLAND THE CONJUROR (1897/Prestwich Manufacturing Company) 50 feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Cast: Professor Garland.
A stage magician performs some of his supernatural tricks in front of the camera.

PROFESSOR ZANIKOFF'S EXPERIENCES OF GRAFTING (1909/Lux) 300 feet. BW. Silent. France.
A comedy that features a professor's cure for physical defects.

THE PROFESSOR'S NIGHTMARE (1915/Vitagraph) 1 reel. BW. Silent. US.
Credits: Dir: C.T. Williams. From a story by Arthur H. Ashley.
A professor dreams he is the killer in a play that features Satan throwing the switch during the professor's execution in the electric chair.

THE PROFESSOR'S SECRET (1908/Gaumont/Kleine Optical Co.) 614 feet (1 reel) BW. Silent. France.
A drug devolves people into monkeys.

PROHIBITION (1915/Prohibition Film) 4 reels. BW. Silent. US.
From a story by Hal Reid.
Cast: Thurlow Bergan, Charles Trowbridge.
Alcoholics see a vision of the "Demon of Rum" and Mephistopheles himself.
In one allegorical scene "The Drink Octopus" saps the blood of the grovelling inebriates.

LE PUITS ET LE PENDULE (1910/Warwick) 1 reel. BW. Silent. France.
Aka: THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM.
Credits: Dir: Henri Desfontaines. From the story by Edgar Allan Poe.
A tribunal orders a man to undergo torture in the dreaded Chamber of Horrors.

PURGATORY (1911) see Il Purgatorio

IL PURGATORIO (1911/Helios) 1800 feet. BW. Silent. Italy. Aka: PURGATORY.
Based on the second book of the epic poem "La Divinia Commedia" by Dante Aghlieri.

PURPLE DEATH FROM OUTER SPACE (1940)
see Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe

THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES (1945/Republic) BW. Serial. 15 Chapters. US.
Aka: THE PURPLE SHADOW STRIKES.
Credits: Dir: Spencer Gordon Bennet & Fred C. Brannon; A.Prod: Ronald Davidson; Sc: Royal K. Cole, Albert di Mondi, Basil Dickey, Lynn Perkins, Joseph Poland & Barney A. Sarecky; Ph: Bud Thackery; Ed: Cliff Bell & Harold Minter; Sfx: Howard & Theodore Lydecker; Mus: Richard Cherwin.
Cast: Dennis Moore, Linda Sterling, Mary Moore, Roy Barcroft, James Craven, Bud Geary, John Davidson, Kenne Duncan, Monte Hale, Anthony Warde, Ken Terrell.
Mota the Martian, (Barcroft), invades earth and possesses the body of a scientist to threaten other earthlings with an "Electroannihilator". Legal consul Craig Foster fights to save the world even though Mota can make himself invisible with vials of Martian atmosphere.
A typical Republic serial filled with the usual spills and thrills that interestingly predates the slew of alien possession films like INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS, that were popular in the '50's.
An edited feature length film titled D-DAY ON MARS was released at 100 minutes.

THE PURPLE SHADOW STRIKES (1945) see The Purple Monster Strikes

PYGMALION AND GALATEA (1898) see Pygmalion et Galathee

PYGMALION AND GALATEA (1912/Ivy Close Films) 625feet. BW. Silent. UK.
Credits: Dir. & Sc: Elwin Neame. Based on an ancient Greek legend.
Cast: Ivy Close.
A sculptor falls in love with his statue and it comes to life.
Another film from the successful husband and wife team of Elwin Neame and Ivy Close.