Works by Paul Wegener (3)

The Student Of Prague

Broke-ass jock goes schizo for a sleazo two-timing upper-class dame, gets stalked by a bitch who's a wall-creeping snitch so he ends up in a ditch - yeah, don't it suck to be a jock.

The Golem: How He Came into the World (Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam)

When an emperor declares that the Jews “thirst after the goods and lives of their fellow men, and practice the black arts” and therefore decrees that they must hit the road pronto, old Rabbi Loew invokes “the guardian of a life-giving word that will awaken any and every thing, whether corpse or man's creation” and “snatched it from the evil, dark powers that be” in order to make a monstrous slave from lifeless clay and take it to the palace to clear up the emperor's misunderstanding of the culture and religion of the Jewish people.

Meanwhile, back at home, jungle fever strikes and we are once again reminded that miscegenation doesn't pay. So by the time the Star of David fills the final screen like a censor's seal of approval, viewers may not know whether to applaud or salute and yell Sieg Heil.

In any case, the fascinating visuals spin an intriguing fantasy tale that is open to endless interpretations - some quite disturbing.

Alraune/A Daughter of Destiny/Unholy Love

Her name says it all: Alraune gots that old hoochie-cooch root in her. Plus, her Mama used to slang poontang like it ain't no thang, and her “Papa” sports a mean right eyebrow that just don't quit. So with that DNA and upbringing you'd expect Alraune to be the ultimate femme fatale. But instead she's merely a cock-teaser, not cock-slayer, with no apparent nefarious intent other than vanity - leaving us to wonder who wussed out: novel or film?

To be fair, the film is incomplete, and the subtitles are often confusing. Still, knowingly or not, the story flies in the face of the eugenics movement, which was enthroned just a year before with US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr's infamous decision supporting forced sterilization, that argued that “unfit” only breeds more of its kind and therefore should be prevented from reproducing:

“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind”.

And a few years later, the Nazis came to power in Germany and took this thinking to the next level. But in this story, the offspring of “unfit” is incapable of murder, while the highly respected scientist was ready to slash that white trash in a flash - suggesting who is the real “degenerate”.