Le golem

Duvivier's Golem is a rough sequel to the far-more-famous 1920 German production with Paul Wegener. It is a European court drama first and a horror/fantasy second, but for viewers who don't mind that sort of balance it is a fascinating experience. At times it resembles The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) or Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible.

All characters are sympathetic, including the paranoid and desperate emperor and his ruthless but loyal chamberlain. A suave Frenchman appears first to be a self-serving seducer but shows later that he can be exceedingly generous. The Jews are perhaps drawn with a bit too much seriousness, but their faith and idealism is hard not to admire. The actual golem awakens only for the final action scenes, but the wait is worth it. Unlike Wegener's golem which resembled a child's toy, this golem appears as a tall imposing man, stiff but realistic. A brisk, intelligent film.

Right from the first few minutes, "Le Golem" reminded me, weirdly enough, of Alfred Hitchcock's "Jamaica Inn": a stuffy, unengaging period piece with a gifted director struggling with material that seems alien to his sensibilities. Even the eccentric emperor plays quite similarly to Charles Laughton's "putting on a show" style. The climactic Golem rampage is fun (the title creature, just a beefy man really, looks like a proto-Terminator), but it's a long, tedious wait getting there. The choppy, poorly preserved print does not help matters. *1/2 out of 4.

Golem, Le (1936)

** (out of 4)

Sequel to the 1920 German horror classic has a fairly interesting backstory. This sequel was planned to be made in Germany but due to the "pro-German, anti-Jewish" state of the country, the production was moved to France. In this film, the Rabbi from the first film has died and the Germans continue their slaughter of the Jewish. A new Rabbi, when the time is right, will unleash the Golem to save the day. This film is much more a political drama than a horror film since the Golem doesn't show up until the final five minutes of the movie. The film starts off rather interesting but grows very tiresome due to countless dialogue scenes. Most of these scenes are the evil ruler running around scared not knowing what the Golem will do to him. By 1936 standards the film is rather violent with several scenes of torture, hangings and Jews being fed to lions. The look of the Golem doesn't match the first film either. An interesting idea but the end results are highly disappointing.

A Golem is an old Czech fairy tale that Mary Shelly stole and rewrote as a film called - Frankenstein. Yes, that is right Frankenstein is a rip-off - A fake, a fraud.

So now it is your duty to go a find out what the Czech fairy tale is about. Watch this film. It is about the Golem, (a story that has been passed from generation to generation), a creature that was created by a Jewish Rabbi......and if you have seen Frankenstein then you what else I am about to tell you.

Go watch this real Frankenstein movie

This version of the golem story has some advantages over the 1920 Paul Wegener film. While the original must remain the best simply out of respect, this film has introduced sound, a much more fluid camera, and odd angles that would make a German Expressionist blush -- and this is France with director Julian Duvivier at the helm!

The golem itself is a different sort of creature, less clay or stone and more of a robotic, steel beast. Not as heavy-set, and with decidedly more human movement through use of his arms and legs, removing the lumbering gait of the older version. I do not see this as an improvement or a step back, but an entirely new scenario.

The political message seems to be different, too. While the Wegener film has a Frankenstein-like message about creating something you cannot control, the story is a bit twisted here. The film says, explicitly, "Revolt is the right of the slave." People could draw a variety of messages from that line alone... I will not offer examples, as they are obvious enough.