La mandragora

The title refers to the German word for Mandrake root. A disturbing and noir-like horror movie that viewers will either love or hate, it has a queasy quality with elements of camp that will either annoy or delight.

Charismatic actor and director Erich von Stroheim, who held his own in Sunset Boulevard, doesn't disappoint here.

Karl Boehm, the wide-eyed, eerily handsome actor who rose to stardom in the British cult horror classic Peeping Tom, is also very watchable.

Context is everything. This is an intriguing horror film that will reward a second viewing.

ALRAUNE (aka UNNATURAL), is based on the popular Hanns Heinz Ewers novel. This version made in 1952, is the fifth and last version filmed. Many sources state that this film is lost in its English language version, but since the version I saw everyone spoke English, I can assure you they are wrong.

This film is unusual, if only for its premise. Erich Von Stroheim plays Ten Brinken, a scientist who has created a women by means of artificial insemination. Ten Brinken used the sperm from a hanged murderer and the egg from a prostitute. Ten Brinken raises the girl (whom he has named Alraune, German for "mandrake") as his daughter, but is convinced because she was created artificially, she will inherit all the unsavory characteristics of her "parents". Only evil will befall all those who may fall in love with her. And tragic circumstances do follow all the men she tries to fall in love with. There is an odd element thrown in which suggests Alraune has supernatural powers. She convinces Ten Brinken to by a worthless parcel of land. She then commands some workers to start digging where they discover a spring whose waters contain healing properties. Ten Brinken and a wealthy woman invest in it but the spring runs dry and Ten Brinken ends up almost financially ruined.

Despite the films very adult premise, I could not help thinking that this film has the feel of a film belonging in era much older than the 1950's. The few American critics who reviewed the film when it was released in America in 1957 also noted an old fashioned air fatalism throughout the film. Karl Boehm (later of PEEPING TOM) is convincing as the young man who falls in love with Alraune, despite being aware of her ghastly origin and is the only man Alraune finds true love. Critics said he was to naive and boyish for the part, but I think that was what was right for the role.

Unusual horror film pearl with Hildegard Knef and Erich von Stroheim

This German black-and-white film premiered on October 23, 1952 at the Europa-Filmpalast Düsseldorf and is based on the novel (1911) by Hanns Heinz Ewers, which has already been filmed several times. The film was directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt and produced by, among others, the Carlton Filmgesellschaft, whose producer Günther Stapenhorst, as UFA production manager at the time, supervised the Kästner film adaptation "Emil and the Detectives" (1931), which is still well worth seeing, and a few years later the was supposed to produce the legendary film adaptation of "Im Weißen Rössl" (1960) with Peter Alexander. "Alraune" was shot in the Bavaria film studio Geiselgasteig and on exterior shots in Munich and the surrounding area.

What's it about? A beautiful young woman named Alraune (Hildegard Knef) casts a mysterious spell on all men who lay eyes on her. This is what happens to young Frank Braun (Karlheinz Böhm) and his friends (including the fabulous and very attractive Harry Meyen) when they discover the unknown beauty in Frank's uncle's garden. This Professor Jacob ten Brinken (Erich von Stroheim) is a somewhat strange fellow. And so it gradually turns out that the young woman, whom the old scientist introduces as his daughter, was born in a very bizarre way. This is how the misfortune takes its course. Although Alraune has unusual powers that prove to be very rewarding financially, her magical attraction to men is causing more and more people to fall into ruin, without her longing for her own true love being fulfilled.

This eerily sparkling film gem indulges in expressionism and horror romance and, with its dark atmosphere and great cast, is a real treat for film enthusiasts. Hildegard Knef inspires and convinces as an unearthly beauty. After her return from Hollywood, she made one film after another in those years and was (still) the undisputed superstar of the Federal Republic film industry.

Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957), born in Vienna, had lived in the USA since 1909 and became an important director and film actor there (for example in the Billy Wilder classics "Five Graves to Cairo" (1943) and "Boulevard of Twilight" (1950) fits perfectly into the role of the crazy genius.

Karlheinz Böhm (three years later he would achieve worldwide fame alongside Romy Schneider in the "Sissi" films) and Harry Meyen, who undeservedly never made it that big (a decade later, Romy Schneider's first husband) fit perfectly arrogant charmers who cannot escape the mysterious magic of dangerous beauty.

In a supporting role, Hans Cossy (the actor was the first husband of the woman later known as Vera Brühne, who was to become a defendant in a spectacular murder trial in the early 1960s, which was then made into a film with Corinna Harfouch in the title role) impresses as the coachman Mathieu , who will be remembered for his striking face and his imposing appearance.

This film is very worth seeing. Great actors, an eerie atmosphere, a horror film that was basically invented in Germany in the 1920s, but unfortunately was later made far too rarely. From February 1957 the film was also shown in the USA under the title "Unnatural...The Fruit of Evil". Von Stroheim was still alive, after her phenomenal Broadway success as Ninotschka in the musical "Silk Stockings", Knef was now also a celebrity in the States as HILDEGARDE NEFF. That probably helped to bring the film, which was already five years old at the time, into cinemas.

This film is a quiet, Gothic kind of psychological film, and is interesting and well enough made so as to be watchable in a poorly dubbed US version. I found the actress in the title role to be strangely compelling, and convincingly portrayed sexual attraction with slightly disturbing aspects.

Eric Von Stroheim plays a perverted scientist, which is interesting because Von Stroheim is said to have induced an actual orgy among actors in order to film an orgy scene in one of the silent movies he directed. Stroheim, in his famous roles in Grand Illusion and Sunset Boulevard, was adept at playing formerly great and tragically flawed characters: this role is an interesting variation on this theme.

This film was made in 1952, in Germany, and is concerned with scientist who collects semen from an executed criminal and uses it to impregnate a prostitute; the offspring of this union is the title character. This movie would have had a strong resonance upon its original audience, just 7 years after the end of the Nazi period.

The Nazis, besides having many kinky sexual fetishes, instigated some strange 'breeding' programs designed to induce blonde-haired and blue-eyed people to reproduce. There were hostels, where these blonde and blue-eyed women could stay during their pregnancy, and where they and their offspring could live afterwords, free of charge and enjoying a comfortable lifestyle.

Alraune is the German word for the mandrake root. In folk legend, the mandrake grew beneath the hanged man, and it was the legendary discharge of semen from a hanged man which supposedly caused this plant to grow. In addition, there was another legend in which the mandrake, applied to a woman's nether regions, could instigate a pregnancy, with or without sexual contact from a living man.

This is a slow moving but strangely compelling film, and owes a lot to the beautiful actress in the title role. The subtext is also fascinating.

Brooding scientist Professor ten Brinken (a stern Erich von Stroheim), thrown out of Uni for his blasphemous beliefs, creates a "daughter" (Hildegarde Knef) from the sperm of a double murderer and the egg of a prostitute in his castle laboratory and raises her under the gallows, where the mandrake root grows. It's an experiment in genetic theory but true to the plant's legend, Alraune will bring good fortune just before death and destruction as the movie opens with the girl escaping from a convent and making her father rich when she divines a mineral spring on land he bought. Falling for her cousin (Karlheinz "Peeping Tom" Boehm), Alraune feels something for the first time but luck won't last long and although her "evil" isn't premeditated (much), she's responsible for an attempted suicide, a framing for theft, a fatal accident, a duel, death from exposure, bankruptcy, and public disgrace. The story ends with the inevitable: Alraune, crying tears she never could before, gives up the man she loves lest he be cursed, too, and her "father", who gave her life, takes it away and goes to the gallows in a fitting twist of fate. The film equates artificial insemination with the crimes of Viktor Frankenstein but blames the creator since love is what gives us our souls and Alraune had become human.

The German production's a handsomely mounted, atmospheric period piece with an Expressionism the original 1928 silent lacked, especially in the gloomy castle, and some thunder, wind, and rain are there to underscore a point or two. Obviously THE BAD SEED, a hit Broadway play and Hollywod movie about hereditary evil that came out a few years later, wasn't exactly innovative. The dubbed U.S. version, UNNATURAL: THE FRUIT OF EVIL, is missing ten minutes and eliminates any reference to artificial insemination.