Watch Alraune For Free

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The title refers to the German word for Mandrake root. A disturbing and noir-like horror movie that viewers will either love or hate, it has a queasy quality with elements of camp that will either annoy or delight.Charismatic actor and director Erich von Stroheim, who held his own in Sunset Boulevard, doesn't disappoint here. Karl Boehm, the wide-eyed, eerily handsome actor who rose to stardom in the British cult horror classic Peeping Tom, is also very watchable.Context is everything. This is an intriguing horror film that will reward a second viewing.

"Alraune" or "Mandrake" is a West German German-language movie from 1952, so it will have its 65th anniversary next year and this film was made less than 10 years after the end of World War II to put it in perspective. The director is Arthur Maria Rabenalt and it is possibly his most known movie now. Kurt Heuser, a pretty successful writer back then, was in charge of adapting the original novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers, the man who also came up with "Der Student von Prag", a pretty well-known silent movie. But back to this one here. It runs for almost 90 minutes and the title character is played by Hildegard Knef this time, Brigitte Helm in the past. You can compare Knef's turn with Helm's here and it is probably entirely subjective which one you will like more. it is the story of an artificially created woman and how she brings disaster and misery apparently to everybody around her (especially men) because she is not natural. There are certainly a couple connections to the classic "Metropolis" in here and you will recognize them when you see them. But sadly, all in all, it is far from being as good as this masterpiece. I found almost all the supporting characters, also the male ones, mostly uninteresting and Knef alone was not enough to let me appreciate the entire project. This is also because her character lost appeal for me in the second half of the film, or the last third maybe, as we see a plot development that just wasn't working for me at all, but it was needed maybe back then to please the masses. I will not go into detail any further to avoid spoilers. Anyway, this film is another example of how mediocre and forgettable the 1950s were in German cinema. I give it a thumbs-down and do not recommend the watch.

I had watched the best-regarded (if still rare) 1928 Silent version of this much-filmed German melodrama with Sci-Fi undertones during a previous Halloween challenge; while I recall precious little of that one at this juncture, having re-read my review of it, I know the remake features a different conclusion – as well as a different method of creation for the titular figure (the more realistic one of artificial insemination here instead of her emanating from the mandrake root, though the plant remains much in evidence throughout even now). Still, offhand, I would say that both films are equally effective – with the lead roles being especially well-filled: Erich von Stroheim and Hildegarde Knef (at her loveliest) in this adaptation replacing Paul Wegener and Brigitte Helm respectively in the earlier movie; leading the supporting cast, however, is Karl Boehm (who would excel in his later genre role in the British-made PEEPING TOM [1959]). As I said, events are not exactly fantastic – indeed, leaning more towards romance in the vein of two other much-filmed and horror-tinged classics, namely "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" and "Trilby" (often filmed as SVENGALI and whose 1954 British version, incidentally, also had Knef as its leading lady!) – but, then, Stroheim does keep a caged ape (which comes to no use other than as an added bizarre touch!) in his laboratory and, in any case, the result is no less stylish for that; all in all, this is ample proof that the Germans did not lose their touch for the Expressionistic with the advent of WWII! The premise, too, of a femme fatale turning the heads of several men, all of whom know one another and naturally fall out over her, is interesting for its distinct film noir trappings – in this case, extending to the rethought doom-laden climax that includes a murder and subsequent execution steeped in irony.

This film is a quiet, Gothic kind of psychological film, and is interesting and well enough made so as to be watchable in a poorly dubbed US version. I found the actress in the title role to be strangely compelling, and convincingly portrayed sexual attraction with slightly disturbing aspects.Eric Von Stroheim plays a perverted scientist, which is interesting because Von Stroheim is said to have induced an actual orgy among actors in order to film an orgy scene in one of the silent movies he directed. Stroheim, in his famous roles in Grand Illusion and Sunset Boulevard, was adept at playing formerly great and tragically flawed characters: this role is an interesting variation on this theme.This film was made in 1952, in Germany, and is concerned with scientist who collects semen from an executed criminal and uses it to impregnate a prostitute; the offspring of this union is the title character. This movie would have had a strong resonance upon its original audience, just 7 years after the end of the Nazi period.The Nazis, besides having many kinky sexual fetishes, instigated some strange 'breeding' programs designed to induce blonde-haired and blue-eyed people to reproduce. There were hostels, where these blonde and blue-eyed women could stay during their pregnancy, and where they and their offspring could live afterwords, free of charge and enjoying a comfortable lifestyle.Alraune is the German word for the mandrake root. In folk legend, the mandrake grew beneath the hanged man, and it was the legendary discharge of semen from a hanged man which supposedly caused this plant to grow. In addition, there was another legend in which the mandrake, applied to a woman's nether regions, could instigate a pregnancy, with or without sexual contact from a living man.This is a slow moving but strangely compelling film, and owes a lot to the beautiful actress in the title role. The subtext is also fascinating.