The Magician (1926)

The Magician is a 1926 horror melodrama based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same name. It’s a movie that deserves to be better remembered - in fact it’s one of the best American horror movies of the silent era.

Maugham’s novel tells the story of magician Oliver Haddo. The character was based on Aleister Crowley. Maugham had met Crowley and taken an immediate dislike to the man. Crowley was of course a charlatan, although a rather interesting one. 

In the movie Haddo (played by Paul Wegener), an occultist, pseudo-scientist, hypnotist and would-be alchemist, is searching for a magical formula that will enable him to create life. Having found the formula all he needs is the heart blood of a pure maiden, and he finds a suitable victim in the person of sculptress Margaret Dauncey (Alice Terry). Margaret is part of the Parisian artistic avant-garde and moving in such circles it’s perhaps not surprising that she should encounter a dangerous madman like Haddo.

Margaret is engaged to a brilliant young American surgeon, Arthur Burdon (Iván Petrovich), who has saved her from paralysis after a freak accident in her studio. One of her statues, a rather grotesque faun, fell on her and crushed her (in a wonderfully bizarre scene that sets the tone of the picture rather well). Oliver Haddo is determined to prevent this marriage and he uses his hypnotic gifts to persuade Margaret to marry him. Dr Burdon, along with Margaret’s guardian Dr Porhoet (Firmin Gémier), is equally determined to win her back and to save her from the grisly fate Haddo has in store for her.

Irish-born Rex Ingram was one of the great silent film directors. He was never particularly happy with the Hollywood approach to film-making and made many of his movies (most of which starred his wife Alice Terry) outside the US, although still under the MGM banner. Ingram’s career more or less ended with the introduction of talking pictures. 

The Magician features a good deal of location shooting and despite being a silent film it has a surprisingly modern feel to it. Those who avoid silent movies because of the exaggerated acting styles of the period need have no fears with this movie - the acting is extremely naturalistic. 

Even Paul Wegener as the villain resists the temptation to indulge in histrionic gestures and his character is all the scarier for his restraint. Wegener was most famous for his roles in classics of German Expressionist cinema such as The Golem. Alice Terry underplays as well, and does so very effectively.

It’s the visuals that are the heart of the film and Ingram proves himself to be a master in this department. He avoids the extremes of German Expressionism but this film has an abundance of superbly atmospheric and subtly sinister images. The one sequence in which Ingram really lets himself go is a hypnotic dream sequence but despite its excessiveness it works very well without becoming merely silly.

The Magician has all the themes that would soon become such familiar ingredients of the classic horror movie - a mad scientist villain who tries to play God in time-honoured Dr Frankenstein style, with the sort of laboratory that all self-respecting mad scientists should have, a wonderfully gothic sorcerer’s tower, a ghastly experiment carried out at the height of a raging thunderstorm, a damsel in distress, a noble hero determined to save said damsel, a malevolent dwarf assistant for the mad scientist,  and plenty of creepy gothic atmosphere. It’s also remarkably well-paced.

The sets are terrific and the art direction in general is magnificent.

Like so many silent movies this one makes good use of tinting, a technique that sadly went of fashion after the end of the silent era. 

The Warner Archive made-on-demand DVD features a pretty decent print. There’s some print damage but on the whole the image quality is clear and crisp. Considering the age of the film and the fact that it has not been subject to a full-scale restoration it has to be said that it looks exceptionally good.

The Magician is visually stunning and very entertaining. While it’s a genuine horror movie it’s pure melodrama in tone, which is fine by me. A true neglected masterpiece of silent cinema. Highly recommended.

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage, made in 1921, is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Swedish silent cinema. Sjöström is still regarded as a major figure in the history of the Swedish film industry. As a result of the international success of The Phantom Carriage the director was lured to Hollywood where he made a number of highly acclaimed movies.

Of his silent movies made in Sweden only three survive.

Sjöström wrote, directed and starred in The Phantom Carriage. It was based on a novel by Selma Lagerlöf.

The action of the film occurs on successive New Year’s Eves, the basis of the plot being a supposed legend that the last person to die during the course of the year is condemned to drive Death’s carriage for a year. Most of the movie comprises flashbacks telling of the lives, and most importantly the sins, of two men who die on successive New Year’s Eves and who thus become in turn the driver of Death’s cart.

The film begins with a young female Salvation Army officer, Edit (Astrid Holm) dying of consumption. Before she dies she asks to see a man named David Holm. In fact David Holm (played by Sjöström himself) will die on the stroke of midnight but his story is not yet over. He will be forced to relive his wretched life and to confront his sins, which are many.

Holm was a drunkard whose impossible behaviour finally impelled his wife to run away from him, taking their two children. This turns Holm very bitter indeed and he grows to hate the world and everyone in it. As a further complication (which will play a vital role in the story) Holm himself has tuberculosis.

Sister Edit goes to great lengths to try to reform Holm. Her motives are complex since she has (very unwisely) fallen in love with him. Her reform efforts are conspicuously unsuccessful. David dies unreformed and unrepentant but he has a considerable amount of suffering to endure before this night is over.

Those who have problems with the acting styles of silent movies will have few causes for complaint here. Both Sjöström and Astrid Holm (and indeed all the actors) give very naturalistic performances. Sjöström would go on to earn great acclaim as an actor and his performance is certainly powerful.

While modern audiences will be pleasantly surprised by the acting they are likely to have major problems with other aspects of the movie. It is more a moral tale than a horror movie (although of course a movie can be both). The moral tale is the centrepiece though. The movie may also appear, to audiences accustomed to the cynicism and the relentless ironies of modern movies, to be very sentimental. And indeed it is sentimental, although not entirely in a bad way.

The big problem is the pacing which is leisurely to say the least.

On the other hand it’s certainly a visually impressive film. The special effects used had to be done in-camera in 1921 and while they’re mostly just superimpositions done by double exposures they’re done with exceptional skill and they work extremely well. The scenes involving the phantom carriage itself are masterpieces of gothic imagery. Sjöström and his cinematographer Julius Jaenzon created a movie that not only looks incredibly creepy and ominous but more importantly the visuals serve the story rather than being there just for effect.

Tartan Video’s British DVD release looks pretty good considering the age of the movie. Fortunately the tinting has been preserved, tinting being one of the standard techniques of silent cinema and one that is very skillfully utilised in this film.

The score is provided by an outfit calling themselves KTL. I endured five minutes of it before turning the volume down to zero. Like most of the modern scores provided for DVD releases of silent movies it distracts the viewer rather than enhancing the movie.

The Phantom Carriage’s visual brilliance makes it one of the crucial movies in the evolution of the gothic horror movie, and although Sjöström was not really intending to make a horror movie as such it does work as a horror movie. Recommended, but if you’re not familiar with the techniques and conventions of silent movies you might be safer to rent this one first.

Cabiria (1914)

Whether Cabiria was actually the first ever feature film may be debatable, but it was certainly the first cinematic epic. Originally released in mid-1914, before the First World  War, it can fairly claim to be one of the most influential motion pictures ever made. Its other claim to fame is that it introduced the character of Maciste. This strongman hero would go on to appear in countless Italian movies right up to the 1960s and would become the major hero of the peplum (Italian sword-and-sandal) genre. Cabiria is in fact the ancestor of that entire genre.

Director Giovanni Pastrone had been making movies as far back as 1908 but Cabiria was something new entirely. Even by the standards of movie epics Cabiria is astonishingly ambitious, both in terms of visual grandeur and in the complexity of the story it tells. Pastrone was also an important technical innovator, being the first film-maker to attempt tracking shots. Many of the innovations usually credited to D. W. Griffith were actually pioneered by Pastrone. Griffith would use them more boldly but Pastrone in many cases got there first.

Gabriele d’Annunzio, one of the key figures in late 19th an early 20th century Italian literature, wrote the title cards and much of the story (in collaboration with Pastrone). The influence of Gustave Flaubert’s brilliant 1862 novel Salammbô is obvious although the story also draws on a novel by Emilio Salgari. The primary source though was Livy’s history of Rome.

The movie was made by Pastrone’s own production company, Itala Films, and when released was an international sensation.

The movie is set against the background of the Second Punic War in the early 2nd century BC, with Rome fighting for survival against the Carthaginian armies led by Hannibal.

The movie starts in a town on the slopes of Mt Etna. The volcano erupts and Cabiria, the eight-year-old daughter of a wealthy merchant, is believed to have perished in the disaster. Cabiria is not in fact dead but by a series of mischances in the confusion she ends up in the hands of pirates, and this is merely the beginning of her troubles. She is about to be sacrificed to the Carthaginian god Moloch when she is rescued, at least temporarily, by a brave and kindly Roman named Fulvius Axilla (Umberto Mozzato) and his faithful black slave Maciste (Bartolomeo Pagano). Fulvius, Maciste and Cabiria will all find themselves pawns in the complex machinations of the Carthaginian noblewoman Sophonisba (Italia Almirante-Mazzini).

If this movie has a major flaw it is that the plot is just too complex and tries to deal with too many major political and military events. It all becomes a little bewildering, and there is insufficient focus on Cabiria’s own story. What has to be borne in mind is that the feature film virtually didn’t exist before this movie was made. Pastrone had to make up the rules as he went along. That he made a few mistakes and occasional lost control of his material is hardly surprising; what is more surprising is that it works as well as it does.

Sophonisba is the character who more or less dominates the movie and this is no bad thing. She is by a long way the most interesting character and Italia Almirante-Mazzini is by far the strongest member of the cast. Sophonisba can almost be seen as the first screen femme fatale or at least as a kind of proto-vamp. Almost, but not quite, since she never entirely loses our sympathy. At times she is ruthless and she is always scheming but then it has to be said that she is struggling to survive in a very perilous world and she is caught between two mighty (and very dangerous) empires, Rome and Carthage. She is courageous and determined so she is both vamp and heroine.

Pastrone’s visual style is best described as painterly. While he does at times move the camera he mostly relies on his sense of composition, making each shot seem like an historical painting come to life. It works because his compositions are so brilliant. His cutting is also, for 1914, rather bold and this saves the movie from the static quality that afflicts other very early feature films. It’s true that Griffith would surpass him in the field of editing but again Pastrone was the pioneer.

The pacing is rather leisurely although the movie’s slowness is due mainly to its excessively complicated plot.

The visuals are unquestionably stunning, not just by the standards of 1914 but by any standards. The sets are immense and overwhelming. The temple of Moloch in this film has inspired countless set designers. There are some spectacular stunts and they are clearly dangerous and clearly done for real. Other highlights are a volcanic eruption, the destruction of a Roman fleet, Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps (complete with elephants) and various battles. This movie has enough spectacular visual set-pieces for half a dozen movies.

Kino’s DVD release is bitterly disappointing. The movie is heavily cut, although apparently a more or less uncut print survives. Picture quality ranges from good to awful. There are no extras.

Cabiria has immense historical importance, to both movie lovers in general and to cult movie fans. Despite some flaws it is more than just an historical curiosity. Its visual splendour carries it through some slow moments. Recommended.

The Student of Prague (1926)

The 1926 German silent horror film The Student of Prague was a remake of the 1913 version. The basic story remains the same but cinema technique had advanced considerably in the interim, and modern audiences will find the 1926 film more accessible.

This version was written and directed by Henrik Galeen and had the considerable additional advantage of having in its cast two of German silent cinema’s great stars, Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss.

Balduin (Conrad Veidt) is a pleasure-loving student who happens to be the finest fencer in Prague. Unhappily he now finds himself penniless. A rather odd character named Scapinelli appears on the scene and tells Balduin that his problems can be solved quite easily. It is merely a matter of signing a simple agreement. Once the document is signed Balduin will find himself exceedingly rich, to the tune of 600,000 gold pieces. And in return all he has to do is to allow Scapinelli to take one item from his room. Balduin eagerly agrees but is somewhat disconcerted when Scapinelli elects to take Balduin’s reflection as his payment.

Balduin is now so rich that he can afford to support a hundred other students. He is soon even more popular than he was before. The only cloud on the horizon is his discovery that his reflection has now taken on a life of its own and this double keeps turning up, causing Balduin both annoyance and a certain growing dread.

A chance encounter with the Countess Margit will have momentous consequences. Balduin saves her life, and then falls in love with her. The countess is betrothed to her cousin Baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg. Inevitably a quarrel ensues between the baron and Balduin, a quarrel that can only be settled by a duel. The baron has no chance whatsoever of surviving an encounter with Balduin. The Countess Margit’s father begs Balduin not to kill the baron. Balduin, being fundamentally a decent fellow agrees, but on the following morning he discovers to his horror that his reflection/double has killed the baron.

Balduin is now on the road to ruin. The countess will not see him, he is expelled from the university and he resorts more and more to drink and gambling. These distractions do not help him. A final encounter with his double will settle his fate one way or the other.

While there was absolutely nothing wrong with Paul Wegener’s performance as Balduin in the 1913 version it has to be admitted that Conrad Veidt’s performance surpasses it. Veidt makes Balduin a truly tragic figure, a man who was basically kind and decent but of course you can’t make a bargain with Satan and expect to get way with it. Werner Krauss is a delightfully plausible yet sinister tempter. It’s the performances of these two actors that make this second film version of the story the superior version. The acting is also on the whole more naturalistic in this 1926 film than in the earlier version.

The most noticeable technical advance in this version is in the much more modern editing. Galeen was a fine director and this 1926 version offers some memorable and nicely chilling imagery.

Alpha Video’s DVD release is one of their better efforts. The picture quality is certainly not fantastic but taking the age of the movie into account it’s acceptable.

Both silent versions of The Student of Prague are excellent in their own ways and horror fans will really want to see both versions. Alpha Video offer a two-movie set including both versions and it’s a very worthwhile buy. Both films demonstrate the artistry of German silent horror films. Highly recommended.

The Student of Prague (1913)

The Student of Prague, made in Germany in 1913, may well have been the very first horror movie ever made. Even if it wasn’t the first it must surely be the oldest horror movie still in existence.

Another silent version of this story was made in Germany in 1926. I haven’t watched that one yet but I intend to do so in the next couple of days.

When viewing a movie from such a very early period in cinema history one is inclined to make allowances. Such early movies usually suffered from very static camera setups and can be inclined to be a bit creaky. In this case however no such allowances need to be made. This is a very fine movie and it compares quite favourably with movies of the later silent era.

Of course it is a silent film and silent films are very very different from sound films. Making movies without dialogue required a particular technique, the use of a purely visual language. Silent films do take a bit of getting used to. It’s worth the effort though, and this is especially so if you’re a fan of horror movies since the silent era produced some of the greatest horror movies  ever made.

The Student of Prague was inspired partly by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story William Wilson although it also draws upon the story of Faust. The movie was written by Hanns Heinz Ewers, a writer who produced a number of bona fide classic horror stories. Paul Wegener, an important figure in the early German film industry, produced and starred in the movie and shared directing credit with Stellan Rye, another important early German film-maker who unfortunately was killed in the First World War.

Balduin (Paul Wegener) is renowned as the finest swordsman and the wildest student in Prague. The setting would appear to be the early or mid-19th century. Balduin is facing financial ruin when he encounters a rather mysterious, slightly sinister and somewhat eccentric-appearing character named Scapinelli (John Gottowt). Unbeknownst to Balduin Scapinelli is a sorcerer and, as we later discover, an agent of Satan. Scapinelli offers Balduin a deal. He will give the penniless student a hundred thousand gold pieces if Balduin will allow him to take one item from his room. The item Scapinelli selects is Balduin’s reflection.

This transaction is a little disturbing but Balduin is glad of the money. He is in love with the Countess Margit Schwarzenberg. She is betrothed to a cousin, the Baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg. As you might expect this situation can have only one outcome - Balduin and the Baron will fight a duel. The countess’s father begs Balduin not to kill the Baron, the Baron being the last of his line. Balduin agrees but the Baron is killed anyway. Not by Balduin, but by Balduin’s reflection.

His reflection has taken on a life of its own and it has been dogging the young student for some time. It is his double, his doppelganger, but it represents the darker side of Balduin’s nature. Balduin, not surprisingly, becomes increasingly agitated and depressed. He tries to distract himself with dancing, drinking and gaming but it is of course no use. His reflection continues to dog his footsteps and it seems that the future for Balduin must hold either madness or destruction.

The movie makes use of surprisingly successful split-screen techniques to allow both Balduin and his evil double to be onscreen at the same time.

The technique of using close-ups and breaking up a scene by cutting to different angles had not yet been developed, and camera setups were static and were confined almost entirely to medium-long shots. This tended to make things rather boring visually. Wegener and Rye deal with these problems very effectively. They do everything they possibly can to maintain the visual interest of the viewer. They use deep compositions with action in both the foreground and the background, they shoot through gateways and doorways, they have actors entering scenes from doors in the background. The end result is that the film does not feel static or dull. In fact, quite the reverse, it’s visually quite impressive.

Expressionism would not appear in German cinema for several years yet but it is clear that German film-makers were already intensely aware of the importance of the visual impact of movies. They were already aware that movies should not look like filmed plays.

This movie is certainly not studio-bound. There is quite a lot of what is clearly location shooting and this again helps to make the movie feel dynamic and fast-paced.

The Alpha Video release appears to be the only DVD release of this movie currently available. With a 41-minute running time the print used was obviously incomplete. A much longer restored version apparently exists but I have been unable to find it on DVD. As you would expect from Alpha the picture quality is pretty rough. I have no idea what the score is like since I find it impossible to endure the scores customarily used on DVD releases of silent movies these days. I simply turn the volume down to zero and concentrate on the images.

The Student of Prague obviously has immense historical interest but it’s also an entertaining and effective horror movie and it’s most certainly worth seeing.

The Man from Beyond (1922)

Everyone knows about Harry Houdini the magician. The most famous escape artist in history, Houdini was a legend in his own lifetime and remains one of the most recognised names in history. But there was more to Houdini that just magic. He was also a pioneer aviator, being the first man to fly in Australia. And he was a movie producer and movie star. His best-known movie is The Man from Beyond.

Two survivors of an Arctic exploration mission find an old sailing ship trapped in the ice. The ship has been there for a century. That’s extraordinary enough, but they also find one of the crew members frozen in the ice. When they thaw him out they discover that he is alive!

The man, Howard Hillary (Harry Houdini), had been the first mate of the ship on its last voyage in 1820. One of the men who found him is scientist Dr Gregory Sinclair. Sinclair decides not to tell Hillary the truth right away, as he fears that the shock of finding himself effectively transported in time for a century might be too much for him.

Hillary keeps asking what has happened to Felice. She was the woman he was in love with. She was a fellow passenger on that last fateful cruise in 1820.

Sinclair takes Hillary to the home of Dr Crawford Strange. When they arrive a wedding is about to take place between Dt Strange’s daughter Felice and a certain Dr Trent. Hillary is convinced that Felice is his own Felice, not realising that his Felice has been dead for a century. Hillary disrupts the wedding, which turns out not to be a bad thing. Felice Strange had been pressured into agreeing to a marriage she did not want.

Hillary has now made an enemy of Dr Trent. Dr Trent is the villain of the piece, the man responsible for the mysterious disappearance of Felice’s father, Dr Crawford Strange.

Dr Trent manages to get Hillary committed to an insane asylum but Hillary escapes (the movie thereby making use of Houdini’s skill as an escapologist). Hillary becomes more and more convinced that somehow Felice Strange really is his long-lost love Felice Norcross. Could it be that Felice Norcross has been reincarnated as Felice Strange?

The plot is pure melodrama but it’s fun. Houdini wrote the original story himself, as well as producing the movie and starring in it. The one major criticism that can be made against this movie is that it doesn’t really do enough with its central idea of a man who finds himself living a century ahead of his own time.

As an actor Houdini was rather limited but he’s capable enough for this sort of melodrama and he does have a certain presence.

Burton L. King was a prolific director in the silent era with a career going back as far as 1913. Modern audiences may find this movie to be a little stilted and perhaps too melodramatic but if you can accept it as melodrama

Imagine the worst DVD transfer you’ve ever seen and then multiply its flaws four-fold and you’ll have some idea of the sheer awfulness of Alpha Video’s presentation. Even by the very low standards of this company this disc is a shocker.

Houdini as the star makes The Man from Beyond an interesting historical curiosity, but fortunately it’s fairly entertaining as well. Worth a look.

Metropolis (1927)

Almost any excuse will do for yet another “definitive” reconstruction of Fritz Lang’s strange and notorious 1927 masterpiece Metropolis but this time there is a real justification for such an attempt - the unexpected discovery in Argentina of a nearly compete print that includes almost half an hour of footage previously thought to be lost forever.

The basic plot is probably familiar to most film fans. The futuristic city of Metropolis is a city of machines, and it is also two cities. The upper city is a playground for the rich. The lower city, deep beneath the earth, houses the workers who tend the machines. The city was the creation of the single-minded will of Joh Fredersen, although it took the genius of the inventor Rotwang to make it a reality. Joh Fredersen’s son Freder has fallen in love with a kind of prophetess/populist leader from the lower city, a woman named Maria, and at the same time he has discovered the true conditions under which the workers labour. She preaches non-violent resistance.

Rotwang has created a robot and has given it the form of Maria. This sham Maria incites the workers to destroy the city.

This was the most expensive of all German silent movies, costing Ufa Studios an estimated 5 million Reichsmarks. It took just 75,000 Reichsmarks at the box office. This catastrophic commercial failure proved ruinous for Ufa but the movie’s legend has subsequently grown steadily year by year.

The screenplay was co-written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou, one of the most controversial figures in the German film industry of that era.

Ufa had hoped this movie would give them a major foothold in the US market but Paramount, who distributed the movie there, were horrified by its inordinate length and cut the movie by about half an hour. Ufa, responding to the film’s poor performance box office, subsequently released the edited version and destroyed the additional footage. The original version survived only in an unbelievably poor quality 16mm copy languishing in a Buenos Aires film museum.

Much of the newly discovered missing footage is inconsequential, representing merely the trimming of scenes that were in truth overlong. It does restore a subplot that had ben almost entirely eliminated, a subplot involving the search for the hero Freder by the character variously described as The Thin Man and Slim. In all honesty this subplot is not vital to the film. There is however one absolutely crucial element that the missing footage restores to the movie, the material relating to Hel, the mother of Joh Fredersen.

Hel had been Rotwang’s wife. Joh Fredesen had stolen her from him, only to see her die giving birth to his son Freder. The character of Hel provides Rotwang’s motivation for creating his robot - he wants revenge on Joh Fredersen and he wants to recreate Hel.

Metropolis is a movie that had been persistently misunderstood. It was attacked by both the nazis and the communists at the time of its original release. On the commentary track by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum accompanying the Blu-Ray release by Eureka he says that he originally saw the movie in Marxist terms but now believes it’s best understood in Freudian terms. I suspect he’s wrong on both counts. While modern film critics are happy, indeed overjoyed, to interpret any movie in either Marxist or Freudian terms, they’re much less happy when they encounter a movie which demands to be interpreted in religious terms. That’s not an acceptable method of analysis in the world of the film school.

But you only have to watch Metropolis to realise that it’s overloaded with religious symbolism. Maria is both the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. And Rosenbaum to his credit recognises this, but he seems reluctant to push the religious interpretation to its obvious conclusion. Freder is clearly a Christ-figure, Joh Fredesen is God the Father and Rotwang is Lucifer. What makes the film so interesting is that there is layer upon layer of religious symbolism. Hel can be seen as Eve, and as a Virgin Mary figure. Lang was raised as a Catholic and continued to identify himself as a a Catholic throughout his life.

While Thea von Harbou’s novel (written concurrently with the screenplay) stresses the religious themes even more strongly than the movie it is likely that the themes of the movie derive equally from Lang and von Harbou. Luis Buñuel in the 60s began the practice by which critics have tended to attribute everything they approve of in the movie to Lang and everything they disapprove of to von Harbou (and they apply this to all the collaborations between Lang and von Harbou). It’s a practice that Lang himself deplored.

The original intention was apparently also to stress the conflict between the technological and the magical, with Rotwang being more explicitly a magician (as in von Harbou’s novel) . Lang admits that he lacked the nerve at the time to fully develop the mystical and magical themes, something he later came to regret.

Of course the lasting popularity of Metropolis can be attributed not just to its visual brilliance (which is undeniable) but to the fact that it lends itself to multiple interpretations. I have little patience with Freudian interpretations but if you’re a devotee of such mumbo-jumbo you can certainly interpret Metropolis that way. Metropolis is in fact a movie that is so overloaded with ambiguous symbolism that you can simply add your own meaning to it. If you’re a Marxist it can be a Marxist film; if you’re a political reactionary then it’s an ultra-conservative and elitist film; if you’re a follower of Ayn Rand it can be a proto-Randian film; if you’re a Freudian it abounds in mother symbolism.

However you want to interpret it the one inescapable fact is that in purely visual terms it’s a staggeringly brilliant achievement.

The Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-Ray release includes a commentary track and an excellent German TV documentary of the reconstruction of the movie, plus an illustrated booklet with various articles on the movie. The previously missing footage is of atrocious quality (it was so badly damaged that a proper restoration was simply not possible) but the rest of the movie looks absolutely superb. It’s also been released on Blu-Ray by Kino in the US but the Eureka edition seems to be generally regarded as the better of the two releases.

Note: the screencaps are not from the Blu-Ray.

Woman in the Moon (1929)

It’s common knowledge that Fritz Lang was by far the most important early pioneer of the science fiction film, but when most people think of Lang and science fiction they almost certainly think of his 1927 masterpiece Metropolis. This was not however his only science fiction movie, and it was arguably not his most influential. That title belongs to his 1929 production Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond).

The backstory behind this move is as interesting as the movie itself. In the early 20s Hermann Oberth had published a book outlining a scientifically plausible plan for using rocketry to reach the Moon. Lang read the book and was mightily impressed. Impressed enough to want to make a feature film utilising Oberth’s ideas, and Woman in the Moon was the result.

UFA Studios thought it would be a great publicity coup for the film if they spent part of their advertising budget funding Oberth’s researches. Which they did. This was the beginning of serious research into rocketry in Germany. One of Oberth’s students who was involved in the project was a young man named Werner von Braun. Many years later von Braun was to design the Saturn V rocket that took the first US astronauts to the Moon. So it could be argued that Fritz Lang played a crucial early role in the Apollo program to put men on the moon!

The film itself falls into three parts The first part is typical Langian intrigue and paranoia, with the idealistic scientist Dr Helius being manipulated by a sinister cabal of businessmen and financiers who want to use his lunar exploration program for their own commercial ends (driven by rumours of vast gold deposits on the Moon).

The second part involves the actual journey to the Moon, and it’s this second part that qualifies Woman in the Moon as the first science fiction movie to deal with hard science and the first to deal with a realistic and scientifically plausible method of space travel. Dr Helius has designed a three-stage liquid-fueled launch vehicle which is pretty much an early prototype of the actual Saturn V rocket used in the US space program. Escape velocities, the overlapping gravitational fields of the Earth and the Moon, the problems of weightlessness, the need for retro rockets to allow a soft landing on the lunar surface - it’s all there and it’s more realistic than most 1950s space travel movies. Lang even came up with a ingenious solution for weightlessness - the ceilings and floors of the spacecraft are covered in leather straps allowing the astronauts to manoeuvre themselves about inside during periods of weightlessness.

The third part of the movie abandons hard science and becomes a rather far-fetched but exciting adventure melodrama.

It sounds like an uneasy mixture but despite a rather lengthy running time it’s an entertaining movie with major plot elements that ended up being recycled in countless science fiction movies. Land co-wrote the screenplay with his wife Thea von Harbou, based on her novel of the same name. Hermann Oberth was also involved in the writing of the parts of the screenplay dealing with the lunar voyage itself.

Willy Fritsch makes an engaging hero as Dr Helius, ably supported by Gustav von Wangenheim as his not-so-heroic astronaut colleague Hans Windegger and Gerda Maurus as female astronaut Friede Velten (the woman in the moon of the title).

There are some spectacular special effects involving models, animations and some impressive sets. The movie veers between a very realistic and a very stylised and artificial look, a combination that probably only a German film-maker of this era could have pulled off successfully.

The Eureka Region 2 DVD includes a brief but fascinating documentary, and is apparently vastly superior to the Kino Region 1 DVD.

A strange movie in its way, and despite some dark moments one of Lang’s more emotionally warm films. A must for any science fiction movie fan. This, rather than Metropolis, is where movie science fiction really begins.