Algol: Tragedy of Power
About Algol: Tragedy of Power
Coal miner Robert Herne is given a machine by Algol, a being from the star of that name, and the machine makes power without limit. Within a year he is running an energy works; within twenty he rules markets and has lost Maria Obal, who lives beyond his reach. His son Reginald tries a coup to steal the machine. Maria's son Peter comes asking for coal for his country, and Herne refuses until Maria herself asks. He smashes the machine so Reginald cannot inherit it.
Cast & crew
More about Algol: Tragedy of Power
Hans Werckmeister directed. Hans Brennert and Fridel Köhne wrote it. Walter Reimann, a designer of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, built the sets. Axel Graatkjaer and Hermann Kircheldorff photographed. Universum Film distributed it. The Berlin premiere was September 3, 1920. A Finnish opening followed on November 7, 1921.
Themes
Background
Released the same year as Caligari, it uses an Expressionist designer for a story about a private energy monopoly.
Making
Reimann's sets sit under a story that jumps twenty years and covers a mine, a factory, and a country the machine never reaches. Reviews from the time of release praised those sets and Axel Graatkjaer's photography and called the join of factory scenes and fantasy uneven.
Look
Axel Graatkjaer and Hermann Kircheldorff photographed the mine, the machine, and the twenty-year rise of Herne's works. Graatkjaer's lighting was one of the things reviewers singled out.
Preservation
Long believed lost. An intact print was recovered and screened at the Museum of Modern Art on November 29, 2010. A copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- Emil Jannings plays Herne. John Gottowt plays Algol. Hanna Ralph plays Maria Obal.
- Ernst Hofmann is Reginald, Hans Adalbert Schlettow is Peter Hell, and Käthe Haack is Herne's daughter Magda.
- Erna Morena plays Yella Ward, Gertrude Welcker plays Leonore Nissen, and Sebastian Droste appears as a dancer.
- Magda leaves with Peter after her father refuses the coal.
- The film was long treated as lost. An intact print was found and the Museum of Modern Art showed it on November 29, 2010, in the series Weimar Cinema, 1919–1933: Daydreams and Nightmares.
Scenes
- Algol gives the miner the prototype in the pit.
- Reginald moves against his father to take the machine.
- Herne destroys it after Maria asks in person.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-power)
- Museum of Modern Art (screened November 29, 2010)
