Alraune

It had been made as a silent film two years earlier, with Brigitte Helm playing the title character, so its remake as an early sound film demonstrates that the folks involved thought it was a sure-fire moneymaker. Albert Basserman is respected, a member of the Privy Council, and given the management of enormous sums of money by royalty, all of which he pours into a eugenics experiment, involving getting two low individuals -- a prostitute and a man about to be hanged for murder -- to produce a child. After a prologue, we take up the story, with Miss Helm at age 16, back from boarding school, and a wild woman -- at a party, women break off engagements when their fiances want to dance with her. As matters progress, people begin to die, often in disgrace.

So, is this supposed to be a variation of FRANKENSTEIN, a warning that science without morality leads to disaster? An expression of the Erda, the soulless female sexual entity who leads men to their destruction? A eugenics lesson, and thus part of the zeitgeist that led to the rise of Nazism? A warning that girls, if allowed to run free, will not do well?

Well, I see no reason it cannot be mined for these issues and others. Good art appeals to many people, and people are moved by a variety of subjects and symbols. I am bemused by Basserman's choice of material for his eugenics experiment. Given the length of time needed to get anything out of it, why select for the lowest of the low? Perhaps that is better covered in Hanns Heinz Ewers; earlier versions of the film suggest that the child was got with a mandrake root, suitable for a fantastic subject.