Sat 9 Jan 2010
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: UNNATURAL aka ALRAUNE (1952).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[10] Comments
UNNATURAL. Carlton-Film, Germany, 1952. Also released as Alraune. Hildegard Knef, Erich von Stroheim, Karlheinz Böhm, Harry Meyen, Rolf Henniger, Harry Halm. Based on the novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers. Director: Arthur Maria Rabenalt.
Perhaps the best film of that recent flurry of horror movies I watched was a much-maligned, badly-dubbed little thing called Unnatural (Germany, 1952). Or maybe it’s called Alraune; it was released under both titles and generally ignored no matter what they called it.
Hard to say just what it is about this film that draws me so irresistibly. Maybe it’s the atmosphere of romantic depravity — it’s certainly not the choppy editing or the atrocious dubbing, though they add an element of dream-like unreality to the experience, particularly when the camera cuts from a scene filmed on some elaborate set or colorful location to one obviously shot in front of a painted backdrop — or even, in one case, on an empty black soundstage.
Scenes seem to start and stop for no discernible reason: the film may come in on the middle of an argument or cut away before it’s resolved, yet it somehow still tells its twisted story.
The story. Yes, the story. Well, in 1911 when Hans Heinz Ewers wrote the source novel, Artificial Insemination was a relatively new science, practiced only on animals, and ripe for exploitation by Science Fiction.
Ewers became a major figure in the heady days of early German silent movies, and his story prefigures the morbid fascination with science and sex found there so often. Alraune tells of a woman created by artificial insemination (purest Sci-Fi back then) who has no soul: innocent herself, but compelled to drive those who love her to recklessness, crime and self-destruction.
Well, we’ve all known someone like that. I think I went out with her a few times in College. But Ewers gives it to us in its purest form, and this film (the fourth made from the novel) relates it with a strange, syrupy romanticism: like what you’d get if Max Ophuls directed Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Like I say, I’m not sure why I find this so rich and watchable. Maybe it’s the patently ersatz innocence of Hildegard Knef (sometimes looking alarmingly like Eve Arden!) as Alraune, set against the relaxed depravity of Erich Von Stroheim as her creator: complementing rather than contrasting.
But mostly I think it’s the rich imagery. The photographer of Alraune was himself a veteran of the German Silent Cinema, having worked with Lang and Murnau, and he makes this film a delight for the eyes as he picks out unsettling details in the background, or sets up a love scene in dark, sinister lighting.
There’s a splendid final montage, dissolving from a dead figure to a withered root, which assumes the shape of a twisted man and finally settles on the image of one ascending the gallows as Alraune’s destiny works itself out. Pure abstract cinema and a film I’ll revisit.
Editorial Comment: There is a three-minute clip on YouTube (follow the link) that demonstrates quite successfully Hildegarde Knef’s mesmerizing effect on a smitten suitor. A recent DVD of the film is apparently out of print, but copies are available (on Amazon, for example).
January 9th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
The movie sounds great; I’ll have to look for it.
Alraune (the novel, 1911) was the second in Ewers’ Frank Braun trilogy; it was bookended by The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1907) and Vampire (1921). The trilogy reeked of sex, sadism and decadence and the second volume especially was very popular. All three books had an pro-Aryan slant and the author was perhaps better known for his membership in Nazi party. He left the Nazi party (and the party left him, it seems) and Germany before World War II.
Despite Ewers’ literary and personal reputation, his novels and stories are worth checking out.
(BTW, Alraune was first translated in English by Guy Endore, who is best known for his novel The Werewolf of Paris. Endore was also no slouch as a screenwriter, with the Peter Lorre version of Mad Love and Tod Browning’s The Devil Doll among his credits.)
January 9th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Ewers wasn’t just a party member, indeed, he wrote the ‘Horst Wessel’ song that became the party anthem, but like a good many early members tied to the SA he ended up an embarrassment and ended up dying in a concentration camp.
Still he is considered by many to be the German Poe, and ALARUNE one of his masterpieces. For an interesting look at him check out THE BLOODY RED BARON, the second volume in Kim Newman’s ANNO DRACULA trilogy.
I’m pleased this one is available, if hard to find. I’ve been looking for it for quite a while.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Not much is known about Ewers’ life. Evidently, he was interned by the US during WWI. One source (Mike Ashley) has him dying in the US in 1943.
January 10th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Jerry
I’ve always heard that Ewers died in a concentration camp, having lost his popularity with the party after becoming disenchanted at some point, though I admit I don’t know a lot about him. A good many early party members either grew disenchanted or like the SA became an embarrassment and ended up either in concentration camps or committing suicide. I don’t think I have ever heard that Ewers returned to the US, though it is certainly possible.
In Ewers case the irony that he wrote the “Horst Wessel’ song that was the anthem of the party is an extra sting. Of course Otto Hahn who was responsible for much of the occult lore of the party and an SS member killed himself rather than die in a concentration camp so it wasn’t an unusual fate.
Re Guy Endore, his novel METHINKS THE LADY became a pretty good film noir, WHIRLPOOL, and THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS was the basis for the Hammer film CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF with Oliver Reed
January 10th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
“Horst Wessel” was also the title of Ewers’s novel. Actually it seems that the song was penned by Horst Wessel himself, and that Ewers’s input was only the novel. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Wessel-Lied
which looks believable.
The novel was translated in Finnish in the thirties by Mika Waltari, the historical novelist known best for THE EGYPTIAN. He was critized later for this and claimed having Nazi sympathies, but I don’t think that was the case here. He just did what the publisher told him to do.
January 10th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
David, I don’t know if this helps, but this is what Mike Ashley wrote in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: “Although a member of the Nazi Party, HHE was later accused of being a Jewish sympathizer and his work was banned.” And a bit further down: “HHE’s works were a product of their time, and in due course he came to his senses, leaving Germany before WWII. He died in the USA.”
Ashley also mentions that Kim Newman gave Ewers “a comeuppance many will cheer” in The Bloody Red Baron. (Newman’s book now goes to my TBR pile.)
There are at least two collections of Ewers’ stories available: Blood (1930, containing 3 stories, and later reprinted in 1997) and Nachtmar: Strange Tales (2009, in a limited edition and containing twelve items). His most noted short story “Spider” is readily available in several anthologies.
Besides Unnatural (which was the English language title), Alraune was filmed twice in 1918, once in 1928 and once in 1930; all (I believe) were German films. I know the 1928 silent film (English title Mandrake) has been released on VHS, as has Unnatural. The other three versions may no longer exist.
Another silent film based on Ewers’ work is A Student of Prague (1912 or 1913 — sources differ), about a young man who sells his reflection to the devil, and is considered one of the first horror films.
It was remade in 1926, starring Conrad Veidt. Both versions have been released on DVD.
January 10th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Jerry, Juri
Thanks. I have the two versions of THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE, which are also based on the story “Peter Schimiel”. Ewer’s “The Spider” is also available free online.
Glad to know the truth behind the ‘Horst Wessel” song since most sources inaccurately attribute it to Ewers. Likely it was his book that brought it to the party hierarchies attention.
Ewer’s wasn’t so much a Jewish sympathizer as a true Nietzchean, who believed the Jews to be a super race rather than an inferior one, which put him at odds with Nazi propaganda. In any case he became disenchanted with the Party as many early members did and broke with them.
I think you’ll enjoy Newman’s BLOODY RED BARON where both Poe and Ewers play major roles. You can check on Wikipedia for a full list of fictional and historic characters appearing in the book.
January 11th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
If anyone can find a copy of ALRAUNE the novel at a reasonable price, lemme know; I’ve read and enjoyed SORCERER’S APPENTICE and “The Spider.”
January 11th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
If you can read German or French, the book’s not expensive. If you have to have an English translation, expect to pay in low three figures or more, so far as I’ve found so far. (Don’t know about you, but I’m inclined to call that unreasonable.)
— Steve
April 1st, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Dear all,
I am the publisher of much of Ewers in English, and enjoyed your review very much.
My earlier volume ‘Nachtmahr’ had a biography of him as its introduction and that is now on the website for free. Ewers had a fascinating life but didnt die in a concentration camp, he died in Berlin his books having been banned. Anyway you can read it all for yourself here:
http://siderealpressxtras.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/yet-more.html
For ‘Alraune’ the book, its oop from me but Atlantis Books and Keel Row Books have a few at cost price.
Enjoy!
John