The icy stare of Brigitte Helm gives a hint of the film's content. This namely is a card for the science-fiction horror film Alraune (1930) by Richard Oswald, released in Italy as La figlia del male, or for the previous silent version of 1928, also starring Brigitte Helm, but directed by Henrik Galeen. A prostitute is inseminated by the semen of a hanged man. Based on the legend of the mandrake root and its powers to impregnate women, it here results in a woman killing all the men who fall in love with her.
Brigitte Helm (Berlin 1906- Ascona 1997) was not even 18 when she was discovered by Fritz Lang for the lead in his film Metropolis. Helm played the double role of the noble and chaste Maria and her evil and sensual twin, a robot created to urge the workers in revolting and destroying their own city. Helm was subsequently often cast as the evil but oh so seductive ice queen, as in the two versions of Alraune; Marcel L'Herbier's late silent film L'Argent; and the multilinguals The Mistress of Atlantis by G.W. Pabst, and Gold, by Karl Hartl. Helm proved, though, to be able to perform also more restrained and emotionally expressive characters such as in Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney, her first film directed by Pabst, and Abwege, a late silent film by the same Pabst. In the latter she resents her neglecting and older husband but hesitates to fall for her cousin, enamoured with her and of her own age. In real life, Helm was a timid, modest and not very ambitious personality. After a short but prolific career of some 32 films, she resented the German film business, controlled by the nazi's. In 1935 she married, moved to Switzerland and withdrew radically from her film career, refusing any interviews. Till this day, however, she still has fans everywhere. In particular the bad Maria won't be forgotten. For her the Mae West line is very apt: "When I am good, I am very good; but when I am bad, I am better."
(Sources: Vittorio Martinelli, Le dive del silenzio; IMDB)
Ross Verlag 5501/2. Distributed in Italy by Ballerini& Frattini, Florence.
Brigitte Helm (Berlin 1906- Ascona 1997) was not even 18 when she was discovered by Fritz Lang for the lead in his film Metropolis. Helm played the double role of the noble and chaste Maria and her evil and sensual twin, a robot created to urge the workers in revolting and destroying their own city. Helm was subsequently often cast as the evil but oh so seductive ice queen, as in the two versions of Alraune; Marcel L'Herbier's late silent film L'Argent; and the multilinguals The Mistress of Atlantis by G.W. Pabst, and Gold, by Karl Hartl. Helm proved, though, to be able to perform also more restrained and emotionally expressive characters such as in Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney, her first film directed by Pabst, and Abwege, a late silent film by the same Pabst. In the latter she resents her neglecting and older husband but hesitates to fall for her cousin, enamoured with her and of her own age. In real life, Helm was a timid, modest and not very ambitious personality. After a short but prolific career of some 32 films, she resented the German film business, controlled by the nazi's. In 1935 she married, moved to Switzerland and withdrew radically from her film career, refusing any interviews. Till this day, however, she still has fans everywhere. In particular the bad Maria won't be forgotten. For her the Mae West line is very apt: "When I am good, I am very good; but when I am bad, I am better."
(Sources: Vittorio Martinelli, Le dive del silenzio; IMDB)
Ross Verlag 5501/2. Distributed in Italy by Ballerini& Frattini, Florence.
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