The Golem
About The Golem
An antique dealer finds, in the rubble of a synagogue, the clay Golem that Rabbi Loew made in 16th-century Prague to shield the Jews from the city's rulers. He brings the figure back to life and puts it to work as a servant. The Golem falls in love with the dealer's daughter. When she does not love it back, it goes on a killing rampage.
Cast & crew
More about The Golem
Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen wrote and directed it. Hanns Lippmann produced. Wegener plays the Golem. Guido Seeber photographed it. Deutsche Bioscop released it in Germany on January 15, 1915. In the United States it was called The Monster of Fate.
Themes
Making
Galeen co-directed and also acted. Wegener produced with Lippmann as well as playing the clay figure.
Look
Guido Seeber photographed the Bioscop production.
Music
Silent, with German intertitles. No composer is credited.
Preservation
Often called lost. The Deutsche Kinemathek holds 108 meters. Silent Era lists a print as existing. A 24-minute reconstruction, using the American second reel, was shown at Pordenone in 2017. Donald Glut wrote that collector Paul Sauerlaender found a complete print in 1958; Elizabeth Baer notes that Glut gave no source.
Notes
- It is the first of Wegener's three Golem films, before The Golem and the Dancing Girl (1917) and The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920).
- Wegener said the film came from Gustav Meyrink's novel The Golem. Troy Howarth writes that the script is closer to European folklore than to Meyrink or to the Jewish tradition of Rabbi Loew.
- Lyda Salmonova, Henrik Galeen, Rudolf Blümner, and Carl Ebert are in the cast with Wegener.
- The original ran about 1,250 meters. The Deutsche Kinemathek holds 108 meters of fragments.
- In 2017 the Munich Film Archive showed a 24-minute reconstruction at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, built around the second reel of the American print Monster of Fate. Fernando Martín Peña found that 16mm reel at the Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken.
Scenes
- The dealer pulls the clay figure out of the synagogue rubble.
- He wakes it and sets it to servant's work.
- The Golem turns violent after the daughter rejects it.
Influenced by
- The Jewish folktale of Rabbi Judah Loew's Golem
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheGolem1915LostFilmFragments)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Golem - (1915, Fragments).ogg)
