‘I, as his own handiwork, shall have my revenge on him.’
A brilliant scientist uses primitive genetic engineering methods to create a new born baby, using a woman of low character as the mother, and a murderer’s seed. He adopts the child and raises her as his own so he can monitor the results of his experiment. His assistant fears that the girl has been born without a soul, and, when she grows into a beautiful young woman, she does prove to be a bit of a handful…
Adaptation of a curious folk tale that was filmed several times, particularly in the silent era, but also as late as 1952 in a German production with Erich Von Stroheim. It’s unusual mythology; the story being that a mandrake root will grow in the soil beneath a gallows from the semen of a hanged killer. The root is then supposed to have magical, life giving properties. You’d be forgiven for not quite understanding all that from just watching this film, and being a little puzzled as to how the good professor brings his creation to life. Perhaps the tale was more popular back then so no further explanation was necessary, or, more likely, it was simply not the done thing to allude to such unpleasantries at the time.
The lead role of the Professor is played by Paul Wegener and it’s good to see him for a change without the ’Golem’ makeup that made him famous. His scientist is a cold, clinical figure at the start of the picture, creating ‘Alraune’ (’Mandrake’ in German) just because he can, rather than for any useful purpose. Unfortunately for him, his arrogance has dire consequences when Alraune grows up to be the lovely Brigitte Helm, who had made such an impression in her debut role as Maria in ‘Metropolis’ (1927). She is wilful, rebellious and, unashamedly liberated. She cheeks the nuns at her convent school and runs off with a local boy, who has fallen for her undeniable charms. Together they join the circus where pretty soon every man is under her spell.
You want some? Yeah?
This is an interesting picture on several levels. Superficially, we see a man brought low by his desire to usurp the role of God. Wegener’s creation is never under his control, Helm causing chaos wherever she goes. Understandably, men can’t resist her considerable charms, and she manipulates them mercilessly, leaving wrecked lives in her wake. In one memorable scene she even stares down a cage filled with lions!
By the time she links up with the old Professor again toward the end of the film, she’s honed her flirting techniques to perfection and he is helpless to resist. Obviously, his physical desire for her opens a whole new can of sub-text and his obsession with her leads to the tragic climax.
On the other hand, if looked at from the point of view of Helm’s character, it’s a whole different movie. What is she really doing except asking for her rights as an individual and as a woman? Yes, she’s a naughty girl, but ultimately it’s the menfolk who attempt to cast her in fixed, conventional roles; the dutiful daughter, the whore, the virtuous wife. It’s the men who lack strength of character, rather than her. All this seems to inform the resolution of the story, which is pleasingly modern, rather than the corny melodrama that might have been expected.
Although a little stately. for modern tastes, the film was so popular that Helm did it all again two years later in a sound version, although the rest of the cast was different and Henrik Galeen was replaced in the director’s chair by Richard Oswald.
Helm was a luminous presence in everything she did, but did not enjoy acting, or the trappings of fame. She reportedly turned down a request from James Whale in Hollywood to appear as ‘The Bride of Frankenstein’ (1935). With the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany in the mid-1930s, she quit her homeland and moved to Switzerland where she died at the age of 90 in 1996. She always refused interview requests and never talked about her film career.
Mark David Welsh 