This is a film that asks the question - if you were to be lost, alone for years in the North Pole, would you degenerate into an animal? "Yes", the film literally answers as Captain Ramper (played by Paul Wegener) grows so much hair he looks like a Yeti.
I won't get too much into analyzing the film as it is incomplete and in pretty poor shape. What exists was posted on Youtube under its German title - Ramper der Tiermensch - by one of the authors (Henry Nicolella) of Paul Wegener's biography, 'Many Selves' and I can't recommend the book enough. If you are interested in Wegener or this film, the book covers his life in worthy detail.
For Horror fans, Max Schreck is in the film, albeit in a small role as one of the crew of the ship in the beginning. We are given the theory of the dormant gland, which apparently is what causes Ramper to devolve from a human being into a "beast man". (It was all glands in these horror films in the 20s and 30s, wasn't it?)
The first half of the footage mostly takes place in the north pole, where Ramper's plane crashed and a whaling crew many years later discovers an abominable "Beast Man". They capture him, bring him home and sell him to a circus sideshow man named Jim Chocolat (Kurt Gerron). His sister, Tony (Mary Johnson) is able to communicate with the beast Ramper - show-billed as Teddy the Ape Man - and he is horrified by the world. When a science team finds him and wants to try out their "gland theory", they awaken the man who has been dormant in Ramper's body all those years.
Through a nice montage that includes a propellor rotating, Ramper is able to make the connections in his mind that make him remember he is a man. Yet when he is free, he (in a superimposition) sees a girl that causes him to wander off. He breaks a leg off the table and smashes out of the doctor's control. As he remembers his old life, he tries to find his mother, but her home is now abandoned in the 15 years he has been gone.
The second half of the surviving film gets more cinematic - montages/superimpositions/effects and has a somewhat faster pace. It's unclear how much of the surviving 50 minutes is even properly in order. Clearly there is a reel or two lost at the end, so there is no conclusion we can see. I will not spoil it to say that the man, Ramper, in the lost footage joins the crew that found him and sails back to the arctic, hoping to find the peace he had as a beast, away from the harsh world of mankind.
If you are a fan of Paul Wegener you should definitely see what's left of this. What exists shows a sympathetic performance from Wegener, who I think should be coined, "The Grandfather of Horror".
