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It’s educational to visit the Classics, even in a strange environment like Hubrisween. Though I classify myself as a horror fan, this is a movie I had managed to miss seeing… well, all my life. It’s referenced in books aplenty, was a presence in the Famous Monsters magazines of my youth, hell, I had a DVD of it sitting on the shelf, part of an Alpha Video set of silent horror movies. And yet, somehow, I had never partaken of it.
It was likely because I’d already known the plot since I was a child. The plot, certainly, but there were twists in its delivery that still made the movie entertaining for me. The educational aspect I refer to here is something I had never known, until this viewing and the research that followed: this is the third movie in a trilogy, which explains the full title, Der Golem, wie in die Welt kam – “The Golem: How He Came Into The World”. Yep, it’s a prequel.
The two movies which precede it – the 1915 The Golem and the 1917 The Golem and the Dancing Girl – are both considered to be lost films. The 1915 Golem takes place in the modern day, with an antique dealer finding the clay figure (much to his eventual regret), and the 1917 version is apparently a comedy… well, we may never really know, unless the films suddenly crop up. Under these circumstances, a prequel makes some sense, and it is an intriguing production all around.
In case you didn’t read Famous Monsters as a child, here’s the plot: in 15th century Prague, Rabbi Leow (Albert Steinrück) is poring over his arcane tomes and finds the stars predict disaster. The next day, the Jewish ghetto receives word that the Emperor has decreed all Jews will be exiled from the country in a month. Leow petitions the Emperor for an audience, as he has drawn up horoscopes for the king in the past, but he has a Plan B: the stars are also right for the creation of the Golem, a clay figure of a man to be given life by a magic word, and it is Leow’s aim to construct such a creature as a guardian for his people.
Leow performs a ritual involving magic circles and a staff that turns into a glowing star, to invoke the demon Astaroth and demand the word. This is a pretty amazing scene, and Murnau would borrow from it six years later for his production of Faust. Leow writes the provided word on a scroll, which is placed in an ornamental box that, when put on the Golem’s chest, does indeed impart life.
There is some standard stuff afterwards, of Leow and his son using the Golem as a servant; it has a tendency to be too literal in obeying orders, and is incredibly strong. Leow brings it along to his audience with the King (Otto Gebheür), which takes place during a “Festival of Roses”. Surrounded by many courtiers, the Golem begins to show some stirrings of human emotions; when the King asks Leow to perform some other miracle for their entertainment, Leow says he will show them “the history of my people, and our patriarchs,” but also warns the crowd that there must be no talking, or laughter.
So Leow magics up a 16th century movie showing the Exodus, and (I presume) Moses. The court Jester (Fritz Feld, in likely only his second role) makes a comment, the court laughs, and the castle collapses. Silly royalty should have listened to the Rabbi.
Fortunately, there is a Golem in the audience who holds up the collapsing ceiling like Big Bad John, saving the Emperor’s life, and causing him to pardon the Jews from their eviction. This would all be pretty hunky-dory, except Leow has noticed his clay servant’s peevishness and consults his book, discovering that as the stars progress, Astaroth will eventually reclaim its creation, turning the creature evil. The Golem, in fact, is reacting very badly when Leow tries to remove the box from its chest to turn it off. He finally succeeds, and decides that since the Golem has served its purpose, it’s time to destroy it.
He is interrupted from this by a summons to the synagogue to honor him and praise God for their delivery. Now, intertwined through all this drama. is the fact that the knight tasked with bringing the decree to the ghetto, Florian (Lothar Müthel), has been smitten by the very sight of Leow’s daughter, Miriam (the truly lovely Lyda Salmanova), and he has used Leow’s journey into the city to sneak into his house and spend the night with her. Once Leow heads off to the synagogue, his son discovers there’s a man in her room and, not knowing about the whole evil stars thing, reanimates the Golem to knock down the door.
This, of course, is disastrous. It results in the death of Florian, the rabbi’s house in flames, and Miriam carried off by the Golem (although later she is mysteriously abandoned. Monsters. Go figure.) The Golem smashes down the gate of the ghetto, and finds a bunch of children playing, who mostly scatter at his approach. One does not, and offers the Golem an apple. The Golem lifts her up in his arms, and she innocently, curiously plucks the box off his chest. End of Golem.
Director and star Paul Wegener had made another early horror classic in 1913, The Student of Prague, during which he first heard of the legend of the Golem. By all indications, he felt he’d had to compromise too much on the previous two movies in the trilogy, and this was to be the definitive version. Architect Hans Poelzig designed the sets, and his recreations of the Jewish ghetto is one of the major reasons this is considered one of the great masterpieces of German Expressionist cinema.
And yes, it is almost impossible to watch this and not see the prototype for many a movie that followed, especially James Whale’s Frankenstein. Look no further than the Golem’s shambling gait and those huge, bulky welder’s boots, the creature’s clumsy attempts to deal with unfamiliar emotions. Wegener’s Golem is more of a figure literally driven by demons, though, a far remove from Karloff’s portrayal of a pathetic, betrayed lost soul.
So there’s another classic down, and it is a classic not only because of its influence on later movies; it’s also more than a little affecting to consider the politics of the story. Or as my friend Mark Konecny put it, “I just couldn’t get past the whole foreshadowing the future of Europe thing.” Not just the increasingly frequent waves of violence against Jews (as I write this late July 2014, bewilderingly on the resurgence again), but in other ways: Apartheid nations and ghettos – still with us after all these centuries.
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