The Golem | |
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Directed by | Paul Wegener Henrik Galeen |
Written by | Paul Wegener Henrik Galeen |
Produced by | Hanns Lippmann |
Starring | Paul Wegener Rudolf Blümner Carl Ebert Henrik Galeen Lyda Salmonova |
Cinematography | Guido Seeber [1] |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 60 minutes |
Country | German Empire |
Languages | Silent German intertitles |
Der Golem (German: Der Golem, shown in the US as The Monster of Fate) is a partially lost 1915 German silent horror film written and directed by Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen. It was inspired by a Jewish folktale, the most prevalent version of the story involving 16th century Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel who created the Golem to protect his people from antisemites. [1] Wegener claimed the film was based on Gustav Meyrink's 1915 novel The Golem , but, as the movie has little to do with existing Jewish traditions, Troy Howarth states "it is more likely that (the screenwriters) simply drew upon European folklore". [1]
The film was the first of a trilogy produced by Wegener, followed by The Golem and the Dancing Girl (1917) and The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920).
In modern times, an antiques dealer (Henrik Galeen) searching the ruins of a Jewish temple, finds a golem (Paul Wegener), a clay statue that had been brought to life four centuries earlier by a Kabbalist rabbi using a magical amulet to protect the Jewish people from persecution. The dealer resurrects the golem as a servant, but the golem falls in love with Jessica (Lyda Salmonova), the dealer's daughter. When she does not return his love, the golem goes on a rampage and commits a series of murders.
Co-writer/co-director Henrik Galeen played a major role in the film (which was unusual for him) and years later went on to co-create other silent horror classics, such as F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) and Paul Leni's Waxworks (1924) [1]
Actress Lyda Salmanova went on to marry Paul Wegener. [1]
The few surviving clips from this film show Wegener in a costume almost identical to the one he used in his later 1920 version, and "show him stumbling around in a manner he would repeat in the later film", according to Troy Howarth. [1]
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The Deutsche Kinemathek film archive possesses "108 meter fragments". [2] While many sources consider it a lost film, silentera.com states that a "print exists", [3] and Professor Elizabeth Baer notes in her book The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction that Donald Glut claimed in The Frankenstein Legend that "European film collector" Paul Sauerlaender tracked down "a complete print" in 1958; Baer is careful, however, to point out that "Glut provides no source for this information." [4]