I suppose if you only ever dedicate yourself to one role or film for the rest of your career, then make it the best you possibly can. This thought process must have been what director and star Paul Wegener had in mind when he directed his third adaptation of The Golem. After both directing and starring in a 1915 and 1917 version of essentially the same story (or at least involving the same character), Wegener reprises the role once more and sits behind the director chair to bring a Frankenstein-esque story to the big screen a third time.
The first thing I noticed about the film was its incredible use of saturation to color the film strips to bring a lot of vibrancy to the picture. From the film’s opening images, the prophesizing Rabbi Low (played by Albert Steinrück) looks to the stars atop of his humble church and smells a catastrophic disaster fated for his beloved Jewish community. From the bluish tint to the film that gave the “night” feel to the film (in the bottom-left corner of the picture to the left) as well as the sickly green glow of his lair (top-right in the picture), I was instantly drawn into the atmosphere of the film.
In order to battle the impending doom, Rabbi Low builds a creature – The Golem – with the help of dark spiritual forces to protect his people. What happens next is essentially the same story as Dr. Frankenstein and his famous monster.
Though the story is a slightly generic version of Frankenstein, and with much more political allegory and religious sentiment to boot, Wegener still tells the story in an exciting way. Wegener himself (pictured below, who looks a lot like Guardians of the Galaxy’s Dave Bautista) also plays the titular Golem and with more dedication than many of the other performers in the same film.
Despite having no dialogue whatsoever, he acts expertly through his facial expressions and mannerisms – either played to frightening or humorous effects. Outside of him, it was nice to see Ernst Deutsch of The Third Man fame at a very young age as the cowardly Rabbi protégé.
Though the ending carries a few anti-Semitic vibes with it and goes to some really strangely dark places, the film still serves as a film full of wonder and excitement that must have been a thrill to see in the early 1920’s. I can say so far that the European directors of the time certainly showed much more dedication to their craft than the American/ Hollywood directors offering simple, crowd-pleasing stories. While the film itself was not exactly perfect, it was still a great fantasy/ adventure film (some call it one of the early “horror” films as well, but I rarely got those vibes). The visuals gave the film the proper flare to draw the viewer into its atmosphere and the costumes/ production aspects were all put together proficiently to feel as if you were alive in the sixteenth century watching this story unfold. While Wegener never made anything quite as successful as his Golem films, especially this version, it certainly helped usher in (along with Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) a long tradition of successful horror/ fantasy films from European directors. For that alone, it’s worth checking out.
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