Algol (Film)
- Emil Jannings: Robert Herne
- Ernst Hofmann: Reginald Herne ( son )
- Gertrude Welcker: Leonore Nissen
- Hans Adalbert Schlettow: Peter Bright (double role, father and son)
- Hanna Ralph: Maria Obal
- Käthe Haack: Magda Herne ( daughter)
- Erna Morena: Yella Ward
- John Gottowt Algol
Algol ( Alternative title: . Algol A Tragedy of Power) is a German film directed by Hans Werckmeister from the year 1920.
Action
Robert Herne is a miner in a coal mine. One day he meets while working in the mine, an alien from the planet Algol. This gives him the secret of the Algol - waves and a machine that turns it emanating from the Algol star waves into energy. Herne now has an inexhaustible source of energy in his hand.
Herne, who recognizes the opportunity of a lifetime and take, the machine uses and supplies the whole world with energy. He wins everywhere in power and influence. But his girlfriend Mary leaves him and flees into a agrarian embossed neighboring country that still resists Hernes quest for power. Herne marries the rich mine owner Leonore Nissen, with whom he has two children.
Twenty years later, Maria's son Peter Bright Herne, to ask him to have the benefit of the energy of the Algol - rays of all mankind. Herne refuses. His daughter Magda follows Peter Bright in the idyllic neighboring country, but which comes under the influence of Hernes power politics under increasing pressure. Hernes wife Leonore comes in an accident with the Algolstrahlen killed and his son Reginald seeks his father after life in order to take over the world to be able to. Herne realizes how much he has the power of Algolmaschine corrupts and destroys them.
Background
Werckmeister worked here together with the architect Walter Reimann, who had previously drafted a year, the buildings for Robert Wiene's silent film classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Outdoor shooting of the film took place in the park of Sanssouci and the Orangerie castle in Potsdam. Algol had on September 3, 1920 in Berlin U.T. Kurfürstendamm premiere.
There is a copy of the film with new intertitles from the 1980s under the erroneous title " Algol - tragedy of the night".
Reviews
In particular, the contemporary critics praised the decorations Reimann and Graatkjaers camera work. The film, however, come therefore in a strange blend of realism and fantasy; the fantastic is not materially and arises from the cinematic unreality. This is Attributed to the more random acting Szenenaneinandereihung which is attributed to poor directing. The story suffers from a lack of logic, but have some interesting poetic moments.