The Revenge of the Homunculus
About The Revenge of the Homunculus
Calling himself Richard Ortmann, the Homunculus now chairs a company and runs it so hard that the workers turn against the bosses. In the boardroom he demands harshness. In worker's clothes he stirs the same men up. He traps Sven Fredland, the partner who still talks about mercy. Margot, a worker who has read his diary and knows who he is, stays near him until she frees Fredland and exposes him. He is locked up, breaks out, and swears revenge again.
Cast & crew
More about The Revenge of the Homunculus
This is episode 4 of Otto Rippert's Homunculus series, German title Die Rache des Homunculus. Robert Reinert wrote the script from his novel. Carl Hoffmann photographed it. Hanns Lippmann produced it at Deutsche Bioscop. Olaf Fønss plays Richard Ortmann. Theodor Loos plays Sven Fredland. Mechthildis Thein plays Margot. Friedrich Kühne plays Edgar Rodin.
Themes
Making
Rippert and Reinert stage Ortmann on both sides of the same strike: he tells the owners to crush it, then puts on worker's clothes and feeds it.
Look
Carl Hoffmann shot the episode for Deutsche Bioscop.
Music
Silent, with German intertitles. Siegbert Goldschmidt's series score is the music written for it.
Preservation
The pre-2014 survival of the series was this episode, incomplete and step-printed. Stefan Drößler's 196-minute reconstruction at the Filmmuseum München, first shown in Bonn in August 2014, puts all six parts back into one tinted working copy.
Notes
- The series opened at Berlin's Marmorhaus in August 1916. This revenge episode is the fourth of six. The last part came out in January 1917.
- Before 2014 this episode was the only Homunculus chapter with a known print, and that print was about three quarters of the original, step-printed by repeating frames for sound speed.
- A 1920 reissue chopped the whole serial from 9,163 meters to 6,315 meters and split the remains into three features.
- Aud Egede-Nissen and Maria Carmi are in the series cast. Margot in this episode is Mechthildis Thein.
- Robert A. Dietrich designed the sets for the series.
Scenes
- Ortmann, dressed as a worker, whips up the men his board has just been told to break.
- Margot gets Sven Fredland out and names the chairman as the Homunculus.
- He breaks out of prison and swears the revenge over again.
Influenced by
- Robert Reinert's novel
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-homunculus-4-teil--die-rache-des-homunculus)
