The Golem: How He Came Into the World
About The Golem: How He Came Into the World
In the Prague ghetto, Rabbi Loew reads disaster in the stars. The emperor orders the Jews out before the new moon, and the knight Florian brings the decree. Loew and his assistant build a clay golem and wake it with a word sealed in an amulet, calling on the spirit Astaroth. At the palace the golem holds up a crumbling hall, and the emperor revokes the expulsion. Back in the ghetto the creature turns violent, kills Florian, who has been with Loew's daughter Miriam, and sets a fire. Loew pulls the amulet's power. A small girl then takes the amulet from the quiet golem, and the body is carried home.
Cast & crew
More about The Golem: How He Came Into the World
Paul Wegener and Carl Boese directed. Wegener and Henrik Galeen wrote it, drawing on the Prague legend and on Gustav Meyrink's 1915 novel. Paul Davidson produced for PAGU. UFA released it. Karl Freund and Guido Seeber photographed it. Hans Landsberger wrote the original score. Wegener plays the Golem. German release 29 October 1920.
Themes
Background
Shot in the Weimar years, inside the German studio cycle of legend films. The decree of expulsion is the emperor's, delivered by a Christian knight who then pursues the rabbi's daughter.
In film history
Because the 1915 and 1917 films are lost, this prequel is the Golem film that later audiences mean.
Making
Wegener had already worn the clay costume in 1915 and, as a joke, in the 1917 short. This is the only one of the three with a surviving picture.
Look
Karl Freund and Guido Seeber shot the ghetto and the palace. Freund later photographed Hollywood horror at Universal in the 1930s.
Music
Hans Landsberger wrote the 1920 score. It was reconstructed after a 2018 rediscovery and premiered in Weimar in September 2020. Karl-Ernst Sasse scored the 1977 restoration.
Preservation
The 1915 and 1917 Golem films are lost. This one survives, with restorations in 1977, 2000, and 2017.
Notes
- Wegener's third Golem film. The 1915 feature The Golem and the 1917 short The Golem and the Dancing Girl are lost. This one is a prequel to the 1915 story.
- Albert Steinrück plays Rabbi Loew. Lyda Salmonova plays Miriam. Ernst Deutsch is in the cast.
- Restored in Germany in 1977, with a score by Karl-Ernst Sasse; again in 2000 at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna; and digitally in 2017 by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation.
- Landsberger's score, rediscovered in 2018, was reconstructed and played in Weimar in September 2020.
- The palace vision includes Ahasuerus. Laughter at that image is what brings the ceiling down.
Scenes
- Loew and his assistant place the word in the amulet and the clay figure sits up.
- The golem braces the emperor's hall after the court laughs at the vision of Ahasuerus.
- A child pulls the amulet free and the creature stops.
Influenced by
- The Golem (Gustav Meyrink novel, 1915)
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheGolem_893)