Welcome to another screening at the LBI Film Club! This time our film is linked to our recent LBI Lecture Series talk with Prof Cathy Gelbin on Weimar Cinema’s monsters. We hope that all those film lovers among you will continue to enjoy our selection of interesting and thought-provoking films linked to the immensely diverse, rich and multi-faceted Jewish experience.
The LBI film club’s eleventh offering is:
The Golem: How He Came Into This World
(Paul Wegener, Germany, 1920)
The Weimar cinema horror masterpiece, The Golem: How He Came Into this World was Paul Wegener’s third attempt at adapting the Golem character for the big screen, the other two being The Golem (1915) and the short comedy The Golem and the Dancing Girl (1917). Starring and co-directing with Carl Boese, Wegener crafted a pre-eminent example of German Expressionism, and an important contribution to the golden age of Weimar Cinema. The iconic landmark film can now be enjoyed in a stunning 4K restauration.
Based on Gustav Meyrink’s novel, the film is set in the Jewish ghetto in 16th century Prague, where Rabbi Loew creates a forbidding clay Golem to protect his people from the tyrannical Emperor Luhois. Brought to life with a demon spirit and an amulet placed in the centre of the creature’s chest, the Golem is a seemingly indestructible juggernaut, performing acts of great heroism. But when the Rabbi’s assistant attempts to control the Golem for selfish gain, it becomes a terrifying force of destruction, rampaging through the ghetto leaving fire and death in its wake.
The film received an outstanding reception at its premiere at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany in October 1920 and played to full theatres for the following two months. It was first released in the USA in 1921 and ran for 16 consecutive weeks, on a daily basis multiple times a day to a packed house at the Criterion Theatre in New York City. The New York Times praised its ‘exceptional acting’ and ‘expressive settings’, and the film generally enjoyed extremely favourable comparisons and reviews.
Directed by: Paul Wegener
Co-Directed by: Carl Boese
Written by: Henrik Galeen and Paul Wegener based on Gustav Meyrink’s 1915 novel
Produced by: Paul Davidson
Set design by: Professor Hans Poelzig
Costume design by: Rochus Gliese
Cinematography by: Karl Freund
Cast: Albert Steinrück as Rabbi Loew, Paul Wegener as The Golem, Lyda Salomonova as Miriam and Ernst Deutsch as Loew’s assistant
Horror, Art, Silent Movie, 75 min, 1920, Germany
German and English subtitles
The link below will be active for a limited number of days – from 22/03/23 to 29/03/23.
To watch the movie please click on the following link and enter the password: LBI_H0wH3Cam31nt0Th3W0rld
Enjoy the movie!
We wish to thank Steve Hills at Eureka! for supporting us and organizing access to this film for our viewers.
