Mandrake (1918)

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Movie
German title Mandrake
Original title Mandrake
Country of production Hungary
original language Subtitles in Hungarian [ magyar nyelv ]
Publishing year 1918
length 5 acts, 1925 meters, at 22 fps approx. 80 minutes
Rod
Director Mihály Kertész [now known as Michael Curtiz ], Ödön Fritz (Edmund Fritz)
script Richárd Falk based on the novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers
production Sándor Klein for Phoenix Film Budapest
occupation

as well as Violette Szlatényi, Jenő Törzs, Boleszlav Szobierski, Daniel Viktor and an American dance couple (amerikai táncospár)

Alraune (1918) is a Hungarian silent film that the two Hungarian directors Mihály Kertész (who later renamed himself Michael Curtiz ) and Ödön Fritz made for the Budapest film company Phoenix. The model for the “fantastic drama in 5 acts” (Hungarian: fantasztikus dráma öt felvonásban ) was the novel Alraune , published in 1911 . The story of a living being by the German writer Hanns Heinz Ewers .

action

An unscrupulous, ambitious scholar uses a mandragora root, with which he forcibly fertilizes a woman artificially, a child that is beautiful on the outside but shows a demonic character. Having grown up into a young woman, it will first be his doom and then all men who desire it.

background

The film was produced by Phoenix Film Budapest, the producer was Sándor Klein. The film was shot in the studios of Hunnia Filmvallalat ( Hunnia Film Factory ). The copies were made by the “Hungaria” film works. Frank Braun's homecoming scene was recorded on the Buda side of the Danube in a railway coupé. On a contemporary German poster from the Theo Matejko studio , the film is described as “the only authentic original film based on Hanns Heinz Ewers”. Richárd Falk wrote the script based on the literary model.

There is currently some uncertainty about the actress in the title role. Hangosfilm, IMDb, filmportal.de and kino-tv mention Rózsi Szöllősi , blogger “Doctor Kiss” and cinemedioevo.net mention Margit Lux , who at the same time also appeared in the Hungarian horror flick Drakula halála (Dracula's death). GECD names Eugen Illés as the director , which is probably due to confusion with his “ mandrake, the hangman's daughter, known as the red Hanne ”; There are several references back and forth between the two films. ; filmportal.de also mentions Illés as a director, albeit with a question mark, alongside Edmund Fritz.

The film was shown in a pre-premiere on December 10, 1918 in Budapest in the Mozgókép Otthon cinema ; the actual premiere took place there on January 17, 1919. In Germany, “Alraune” was premiered on April 17, 1919 in the representative large marble house in Berlin. The cinema poster for the premiere was created by the graphic artist Josef Fenneker . The police in Berlin imposed "mandrake" under the censorship no. 42 789 a youth ban.

The film is now considered lost.

reception

The film was discussed

  • in the Hungarian magazine Mozihét (“Cinema Week”) No. 18, 1922 (Article by Lajos Pánczél: The Curiosities of External Films)
  • Lajos Pánczél: Pereg a film (German: The film rolls). Budapest, around 1920 [1923?], Pp. 113–114.
  • in the “Kinematograph” No. 627, 1919.

Herbert Birett lists it in his “Directory of films run in Germany” under Munich No. 274 (1919) and No. 451 (1919), Gerhard Lamprecht in Volume 9 of “Deutsche Stummfilme” as No. 7th

Ewers' novel has been used several times as a template for films. There were two more silent arrangements in Germany in 1918 by Eugen Illés and Joseph Klein . In 1927 Henrik Galeen shot another silent mandrake version, and in 1930 Richard Oswald created the first sound film version . Brigitte Helm played the title role in both . In 1952 Arthur Maria Rabenalt resorted to the fabric. Here Hildegard Knef was the mandrake, Erich von Stroheim was the wicked scientist. In 2010 Tripp Reed made a horror film with Max Martini and Betsy Russell with the German distribution title Alraune - Die Wurzel des Grauens ( Mandrake ), which is based on a story by William B. Steakley and has nothing to do with the novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers.

Web links

Poster by C. Eisen

Two cinema posters by C. Eisen:

  • Cinema poster for the neutral film “Alraune. World film in 6 departments ”distributed by“ Monopol Filmvertrieb A.Flügel ”, design by C. Eisen, print: E. Ehret, Freiburg [motif: black-green monster], at 1stdibs.com (accessed May 7, 2020)
  • Cinema poster for the neutral film “Alraune. World film in 6 departments "distributed by" Monopol Filmvertrieb A.Flügel ", design by C. Eisen, print: E. Ehret, Freiburg [motif: woman with octopus], at numisbids.com (accessed May 7, 2020)

Items:

  • Mandrake at Hunhorror (Hungarian)
  • Mandrake at Hangosfilm (Hungarian)
  • Mandrake at kinotv.com (shows 2 stills from the film (the third belongs to "Mandrake, the hangman's daughter , called the red Hanne"!) And the poster of the Mozgókép Otthon cinema with the title line világhirü regénye filmen (German: world famous novel in film ))
  • Mandrake on the Classic horror film board at tapatalk.com
  • Alraune at cinemedioevo.net (ottobre 2004)

literature

  • Rolf Aurich, Wolfgang Jacobsen, Gabriele Jatho (Hrsg.): Artificial people - manic machines - controlled bodies . Jovis, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-931321-41-X . (On the occasion of the Berlinale retrospective 2000 by Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek and Berlin International Film Festival).
  • Herbert Birett: Directory of films run in Germany: Decisions d. Film censorship 1911-1920; Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart. Verlag de Gruyter Saur, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-11-130131-1 .
  • Herbert Birett: Silent film music . A collection of materials. Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin 1970, DNB 456121080 .
  • Olaf Brill: Expressionism in the Cinema. Traditions in World Cinema. Edinburgh University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4744-0326-9 , p. 191.
  • Reinhold Keiner: Hanns Heinz Ewers and the Fantastic Film (= studies on film history. 4). Olms-Verlag, Hildesheim 1988, ISBN 3-487-09050-3 .
  • Paul Meehan: Tech-Noir: The Fusion of Science Fiction and Film Noir. McFarland Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4766-0973-7 , pp. 23, 50 and 91.
  • Karin Ploog: When the notes learned to run ... Part 2: History and stories of popular music up to 1945 composers - librettists - lyricists. Edition 6, Verlag BoD - Books on Demand, 2016, ISBN 978-3-7386-7287-9 .
  • Alan K. Rode: Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film. Screen Classics, University Press of Kentucky, 2017, ISBN 978-0-8131-7397-9 , p. 557.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ is behind it, as in IMDb et al. stated, the Hungarian-born (?) Austrian variety artist and later music manager Edmund Fritz, the founder and piano accompanist of the women's vocal group Singing Babies , which became internationally known as The Viennese Singing Sisters , although they were not siblings? She also appeared in sound films; Blogger "Doctor Kiss", however, denies (" is almost certainly not ") the identity of Ödön Fritz / Edmund Fritz with the "German radio star of the 1930s".
  2. ↑ cf. Janne Wass (November 27, 2018) at scifist.net , here also photos by Rózsi Szöllősi along with a contemporary poster of the Budapest theater Mozgókép Otthon (German: "Kino daheim"). Blogger “Doctor Kiss”, on the other hand, claims in Classic Horror Film Board (May 22, 2008) that Margit Lux played the mandrake, and shows the same lobby cards .
  3. ↑ cf. Filmografia at Hangosfilm
  4. ↑ Hungaria filmgyár 1918, cf. Hunhorror ; there also still photos (Hangosfilm.hu)
  5. ↑ Movie poster for "Alraune" 1919
  6. ↑ on him cf. Ploog Part 2, p. 212: “Falk, Richard, geb. April 29, 1879 in Moringen / Kr. Northeim, worked as Kapellmeister a. Composer, still lived in Berlin in 1940. “Identical to the screenwriter?
  7. ↑ ALRAUNE ( Hungarian ) hangos film. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  8. ↑ Alraune ( Italian ) cinemedioevo.net. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  9. ↑ is considered to be the first “Dracula” in film history. The year 1921 can be read on a still picture with Paul Askonas and Margit Lux; see. wikimedia.org
  10. ↑ According to the blogger "Doctor Kiss", the film was shown in January 1919 with an abbreviated title as "Mandrake" (which subsequently caused some confusion) and was shown again under this title in September 1921; The film itself was also shortened by 114 meters, which fell victim to the scissors of the re-introduced Reich film censorship .
  11. ↑ cf. Information from Hangosfilm and from IMDb / releaseinfo  : "January 1919".
  12. ↑ cf. GECD # 17350
  13. ↑ Cinema poster by Josef Fenneker for the premiere in the “Marble House” in 1919.
  14. ↑ cf. GECD # 17350
  15. ↑ this information according to GECD # 17350
  16. ↑ the latter questionable, cf. "Doctor Kiss" on Classic Horror Movie Board at tapatalk.com