Lilith and Ly
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Lilith and Ly |
| Country of production | Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1919 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Erich Kober |
| script | Fritz Lang |
| production | Fiat film, Vienna |
| camera | Willy Hameister (unsure) |
| occupation | |
| |
Lilith and Ly is an extremely rare example of an Austrian vampire and horror film. In 1919 Erich Kober directed it based on a script by Fritz Lang .
action
Frank Landov is a gentleman and charmer, but also an ambitious researcher. Though desired by women, he lives his life alone and is entirely devoted to science. He has set up two laboratories, one of which is underground and has a secret door as the only access. His latest, not quite finished development is a so-called television mirror. Only his rides after many a long night offer him balance and relaxation. When his old friend Mudarra, a sculptor, sees him on one of these rides, he decides to visit Frank. Mudarra tells Frank that he is currently madly in love with Ly Delinaros, the daughter of Privy Councilor Delinaros. Delinaros is surrounded by several men from an ominous syndicate who show a burning interest in Frank's invention. Ly is not in love with Mudarra, only values him as a friend. The sculptor is so affected by their rejection that he intends to end his life by jumping off the bridge into the depths. Frank, who has just returned from a meeting at the Syndicate, can barely dissuade him from this act of desperation. He takes Mudarra into his apartment and explains that he too has always been looking for the one true and only woman, but who he knows he will probably never find. In order to dissuade Mudarra from his gloomy thoughts, Frank advises his friend to throw himself into artistic work immediately. This is exactly what the sculptor does and creates a work of classic beauty, a statue optically based on Ly. Then the artist leaves the city.
On his last trip through India, Frank Landov discovered the grave of a shaman who was mummified. At the mummy's feet, Frank found strips of parchment paper that were written on in Sanskrit . Back home, Landov began the laborious translation of the characters. From the mysterious lines he took a formula for how to bring a certain object to life. According to the shaman's prophecy, the resulting being will be loyal and devoted to his “Creator” until death. The Sanskrit script also says: "Beware that a drop of blood ever touches the lips of this being, because otherwise ...". That is where the written records end. Frank stands in front of Mudarra's statue, the replica of Lys, his great love. The stone work of art is the ideal of a woman, noble in appearance and of absolute perfection - as a living, real woman of flesh and blood could never be, Frank believes. And so he is tempted. Landov wants to bring this statue to life with the shaman's magic formula. He takes a ruby into which he has carved the sacred symbol of the shaman and places the gemstone in the place where the human heart is. In fact, this miraculous transformation succeeds, and a noble female figure emerges from the statue and kneels, as if to thank her, in front of her "creator". Frank takes a deep breath. He puts a hand on her head as if for a blessing baptism and says: "You should be called Lilith and be the sun of my life!"
Weeks of true happiness begin for Frank Landov. Like the biblical Lilith, according to the legend of Adam's first wife, his creation is also a true miracle, which transforms his emotionally empty life into a paradise. Frank can no longer think of anything but this woman, and he is behind schedule with his work. Even the insistence and admonition of the privy councilor that Frank should finally bring his invention to a close faded away. Frank is completely trapped in this newly awakened love. Frank's servant was the first to manage to lead his employer back to the laboratory and to his experiments. But when one day Lilith visits him there too, all work is immediately forgotten. She surprises him from behind as he is heating a test tube with its contents over a flame. With her elf-like hands, she jokingly covers his eyes so that he can no longer see what he is doing. The test tube shatters in the excessive heat, and Frank scratches his skin so that some blood drips down. Lilith's lips greedily pounce on the drops of blood, which she kisses off without further ado. But from now on a strange transformation takes place in Frank's dream woman. Her urge towards the laboratory, where Frank also keeps the statue, increases from time to time despite the clear prohibition issued by Frank. Landov now begins to work like a man possessed and neglects Lilith to the same extent.
Dr. Wörmann, once Frank's travel companion to the shaman's grave in India, is visiting and tells Landov that he has visited the grave again. There he made two discoveries: a mysterious amulet and another parchment written in Sanskrit. Landov is in a state of excitement, pulls his companion into his secret laboratory and absolutely wants to compare his parchment pieces with the new Wörmanns. When Privy Councilor Delinaros called him over to him, he left his friend Wörmann in the laboratory with the parchment strips. Woermann did not remain idle and continued comparing parchments. He quickly realizes that his scrap is the continuation and the end of Landov's found writings. Dr. Woermann shudders when he reads the following: “But if it should happen due to an accident that the creature thus created gets knowledge of its origin, it will become a vampire. It will have secret powers, it will be able to make itself invisible and the vampire will drink blood wherever he finds it, because he needs it to be ”. Finally it is written: “And there is only one means to destroy the vampire: You have to destroy the archetype from which it was created. Because human strength cannot harm him. ”The man returning home from India shakes his head in disbelief.
Frank Landov has meanwhile arrived at Privy Councilor Delinaros'. In Ly he recognizes the carnal likeness, which he himself created in his hubris as the creator of his creature. Frank quickly realizes that the primal human being Ly is worth a million times more than his artistic creation Lilith, and he only begins to feel disgust as soon as he perceives Lilith's presence. In the presence of important confidants of the privy councilor, he demonstrates his development of the concave mirror, while the counterpart is in the laboratory with Freund Wörmann. With this television mirror, Frank explains to his astonished audience, one can cover long distances and receive images from the point where the second concave mirror is set up. The members of the Syndicate back off in horror when they replaced Dr. Wörmann, studying the Sanskrit text Lilith, see how she leans over Wörmann's corpse and destroys the parchment with a diabolical laugh. Frank runs away in horror.
Since that bloodlust murder, Lilith has disappeared without a trace. Frank has had a nervous breakdown and is on the way to recovery. Ly takes care of him touchingly and nurses him back to health. Both want to get engaged. But it comes as it should: Lilith returns: like a ghost, she effortlessly walks through cupboards and walls and passes closed doors. Even at an engagement dinner, she assumes the position of Lys in her clothes without Frank noticing. Landov almost even had that of Dr. Wörmann brought the amulet that would have increased Lilith's powers immeasurably. When he kills his true fiancée Ly, he pleads with her: "Never part with this amulet!" Then he returns to his laboratory with a bottle of champagne. While the flap of his television mirror falls, Lilith floats, arms raised threateningly, through a closed window into the room. In panic, Frank throws another souvenir from his East Asia expedition, a Tibetan sword, into the concave mirror with such force that the blade pierces the mirror and bores into the statue behind it, which is thereby destroyed.
The next morning Frank Landov goes to his future father-in-law and confesses to the privy councilor his anguish of the past weeks and months. Ly is also so upset by the recent events that she has had a nervous breakdown. Delinaros explains to Landov that the doctors treating Ly advised him that Frank never see his daughter again. The abandoned man now stands alone at a bridge, only holding the ruby carved with the Sanskrit characters, with which he once brought the statue to life, Lilith. This heart of the vampire, which was found next to the unconscious Ly, has been torn from Lilith and the spook has come to an end. Frank, who had received the ruby from Delinaros when he left, throws the gem carelessly into the water, where it sinks.
Production notes
Lilith and Ly were inspected by a specialist audience in Vienna in July 1919. Whether and when the five-act act was shown to the paying cinema audience cannot currently be determined with any certainty. The screenplay was Fritz Lang's only contribution to a film from his old homeland, Austria.
criticism
“The work, whose scenario comes from Fritz Lang, is based on a well thought-out fable on which the exciting plot is originally and effectively based. The roles have a first-rate cast. The male lead is embodied by Mr. Marschall, an artist full of culture and great talent, the female lead is in the hands of Elga Beck, who is known for her beauty and with whom the company has acquired a star of great traction. "
Web links
- Lilith and Ly in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Lilith and Ly at filmportal.de