The Bells is a play in three acts by Leopold Davis Lewis which was one of the greatest successes of the British actor Henry Irving. The play opened on 25 November 1871 at the Lyceum Theatre in London and initially ran for 151 performances. Irving was to stage the play repeatedly throughout his career, playing the role of Mathias for the last time the night before his death in 1905.
The Bells is a translation by Leopold Lewis of the 1867 play Le Juif Polonais (The Polish Jew) by Erckmann-Chatrian. The Erckmann-Chatrian play was also adapted into an opera of the same name in three acts by Camille Erlanger, composed to a libretto by Henri Cain.
In 1871, Irving began his association with the Lyceum Theatre with an engagement under the management of Hezekiah Bateman. The fortunes of the house were at a low ebb when the tide was turned by Irving's sudden success as Mathias in The Bells, a property which Irving had found for himself. Bateman had been looking for a leading man when he saw Irving in a play, and the two discussed terms and possible roles for Irving, including a new version of The Polish Jew, a play about a man haunted by a murder he has committed. The Lyceum Theatre season opened in September 1871, and the first two plays were box office failures. By late October Bateman was facing financial ruin. Again Irving urged him to stage The Polish Jew, convinced that the play would be a dramatic and financial success. An unsuccessful version of the play was running at the Royal Alfred Theatre in Marylebone to meagre audiences, which failed to convince Bateman that another version could be a success; but Irving persuaded him and gave him a copy of The Bells, by Leopold Lewis.
The Bells may refer to:
The Bells is a lost 1918 American silent drama film released by Pathé Exchange and based on the play, The Bells, by Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian. The play had been a favorite vehicle for actor Henry Irving.
This silent version stars Frank Keenan and Lois Wilson. The story was remade in 1926 as The Bells with Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff.
As reported in a film publication, Mathias, the struggling innkeeper in an Alsatian hamlet, murders a wealthy Jew who comes to spend a night at the inn in order to pay off debts and a mortgage.
The murderer is never discovered, but the season passes into local history as the "Polish Jew's winter." Mathias prospers, and years later his daughter becomes engaged to the captain of the gedarmes. Mathias prepares her dowry, and the sight of the gold coins brings again to his tortured conscience the ever-present sound of the sleigh-bells that heralded the approach of the ill-fated Jewish guest. In his sleep he dreams he is on trial and a hypnotist wrings a confession from him. In an ecstasy of fear he expires in the arms of his wife and daughter, the victim of Heaven's justice.
"The Bells" is a heavily onomatopoeic poem by Edgar Allan Poe which was not published until after his death in 1849. It is perhaps best known for the diacopic use of the word "bells." The poem has four parts to it; each part becomes darker and darker as the poem progresses from "the jingling and the tinkling" of the bells in part 1 to the "moaning and the groaning" of the bells in part 4.
This poem can be interpreted in many different ways, the most basic of which is simply a reflection of the sounds that bells can make, and the emotions evoked from that sound. For example, "From the bells bells bells bells/Bells bells bells!" brings to mind the clamoring of myriad church bells. Several deeper interpretations exist as well. One is that the poem is a representation of life from the nimbleness of youth to the pain of age. Growing despair is emphasized alongside the growing frenzy in the tone of the poem. Another is the passing of the seasons, from spring to winter. The passing of the seasons is often used as a metaphor for life itself. The poem also suggests a Poe theme of mourning over a lost wife, courted in sledge, married and then killed in a fire as the husband looks on. The tolling of the iron bells reflects the final madness of the grief-stricken husband.