Alraune – Henrik Galeen, 1928

The Mandrake (O.V. Alraune)

Germany, 1928

Director: Henrik Galeen

Script: Henrik Galeen

Cast: Brigitte Helm, Paul Wegener, Ivan Petrovich, Mia Pankau

Genre: Drama

Plot

Professor Jakob ten Brinken is a scientist obsessed with creating artificial life. He is inspired by the mandrake, a root with magical powers that, according to certain beliefs, can take human form. Brinken has studied the genetic and hereditary characteristics, and believes he is capable of creating life in a laboratory so that the resulting being does not possess the characteristics of its progenitors.

The scientist instructs his nephew Franz to find a suitable woman for the experiment. Franz is reluctant, but brings his uncle a prostitute. The young man tries to talk his uncle out of it, but the professor won’t budge. The result of the experiment is the attractive Alraune, who is sent to a nuns’ boarding school for girls. There the girl will do numerous pranks.

One day she runs away with a delinquent. But not necessarily because she is in love with him. On the train, Alraune does not stop flirting with the men who cross her path, thus humiliating her companion. She meets a magician, a circus illusionist, and goes with him to help him in his acts. At the circus she also seduces the lion tamer.

The “father”, the scientist who created her, manages to locate her, and makes her return to him. At a hotel where the two are staying, a viscount appears, who becomes the girl’s suitor. The professor refuses to grant him the hand of his “daughter”, claiming that she is too young. But Alraune is ready to run away again…

However, the girl finds a notebook written by the professor, which tells the story of his creation. Horrified to discover that she is an artificial product created in a laboratory by a megalomaniac, Alraune decides not to escape with the viscount and to stay with her “father”… but to take revenge on him…

Comment

Artificial insemination and test-tube babies, something that at the time of filming this movie still belonged to the realm of fantasy and science fiction, is the main theme of the plot. The film is a drama about the classic megalomaniac Frankenstein-like scientist (individuals more real than one might imagine) and his defiance of the natural order. To this end, elements of black magic are also included, as the scientist protagonist mixes the most advanced science of the moment with obscure ancestral knowledge.

In the case of Alraune, the girl is the product of the sperm of a hanged man and a prostitute (artificially inseminated). The plot is based on a novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers, who was in contact with the OTO (“Ordo Templi Orientis”) and the occultist Aleister Crowley. The director Henrik Galeen was a friend of Ewers.

Interestingly, the actor Paul Wegener, who plays the professor, had previously acted in films about the legendary “Golem” of Kabbalistic mythology, giving life to the protagonist monster. And Brigitte Helm, who here gives life to Alraune, is the human robot in “Metropolis”.

The resemblance of Wegener (the professor) to the Soviet leader Brezhnev is striking.

The director Henrik Galeen was the screenwriter of one of the first film versions of the “Golem” (in 1915) and also of “Nosferatu” (F. W. Murnau, 1922).

Alraune, who is an artificially created woman, lacks certain human feelings. This is noticeable, for example, in the case of fear. The magician is amazed that the mouse in his trick does not frighten her. And what’s more: The girl enters the lions’ cage as if there were no danger at all.

The beautiful Brigitte Helm masterfully embodies a kind of hybrid between the prototypical femme fatale and a lolita. The young woman seduces every man in her path. Including her creator, who becomes increasingly jealous (this is in fact the goal of Alraune, who intends to slowly take revenge on her creator through this psychological torture).

The message of the film is similar to that of the novel (and subsequent film adaptations) of “Frankenstein”; defying the laws of nature by creating artificial life is something that carries unpleasant consequences. And by the way: The producers of “The Bride of Frankenstein” (James Whale, 1935) had considered actress Brigitte Helm to play the “bride” of the monster (female version of the spawn); but the role went to Elsa Lanchester.