The Golem (Julien Duvivier, 1936)

First things first, I had to watch this movie in a less than ideal print. At the present moment, Julien Duvivier's French sequel to the 1920 German horror classic is not streaming, not subtitled in English on YouTube, and only available domestically on a public domain-quality cheapie DVD that looks like a bad TV or VHS transfer, with white subtitles that can be hard to read when the black and white image is too white and some lines of dialogue that the subtitler ignored completely. This film really deserves a proper restoration and rerelease.

Despite these hindrances to the viewing experience, The Golem (or The Man of Stone, as it's sometimes called) is a pretty good movie and a worthy if more conventional followup to the 1920 horror classic The Golem. Duvivier was an established, successful director in France (he's probably best known today for his gangster film Pepé le Moko, starring Jean Gabin), and he gets a lot of resources to work with in The Golem, including hundreds of extras, lavish sets and the green light to destroy some of those lavish sets in the action-packed climactic scene, and several horses, lions, and tigers. It's an epic (that still manages to reach the finish line in 95 minutes).

Taking place in the same Jewish ghetto of Prague as the first film, this Golem picks up several years later with Rabbi Loew's young successor, Rabbi Jacob (Charles Dorat), entrusted with the safekeeping of the golem. Living under the oppressive regime of Emperor Rudolf II (Harry Baur), the Jewish citizens of the ghetto ask Jacob to unleash the golem, but Jacob encourages patience. Loew gave specific orders to not awaken the golem until things are at their bleakest point, and Jacob knows it's going to get a lot bleaker. He also suspects he may not survive the political turmoil, so he entrusts the secret to awakening the golem to his wife Rachel (Jany Holt, who has an incredible screen presence). As the ailing, insecure Rudolf grows more erratic and the ruthless Chancellor Lang (Roger Karl) gains more and more influence over Rudolf's decision-making, the Jewish population grows ever more imperiled.

Rudolf and Lang make it their mission to find and destroy the golem but are repeatedly thwarted. Bribery and torture don't even work on this Jacob fella. Things grow even more complicated when Rudolf decides to enter a marriage of political convenience with his cousin, Isabel of Spain, angering his mistress, Countess Strada (Germaine Aussey), who finds and steals the golem in retribution, causing big problems for everybody. When the golem is finally discovered, Rudolf decides to take genocidal action against the Jewish population, with Lang's encouragement and manipulation. The golem has other plans.

Rudolf and Harry Baur's portrayal of him are surprisingly complex for this kind of character. Instead of the one-note power-mad emperor, Rudolf is lonely, depressed, conscience-stricken, insecure, and isolated in addition to being pampered and vindictive and petulant and power-hungry. The film sees him as both a pathetic and empathetic character and shows that terrible actions are just as often the result of weakness and insecurity as they are malevolence and deviousness.

Though the film is exciting and narratively complicated (there are about six other major characters I didn't even mention), we don't even see the golem until the last thirty minutes, and the golem doesn't come to life until the big, final scene. This really pays off, but there are moments where I felt like Milhouse watching Poochy's debut ("when are they going to get to the fireworks factory?" (starts crying)). It's a neat story-mirroring trick, however, as it forces the audience into the same position as the characters, who have been ready for some golem-smashing since scene one. And Duvivier (and Ferdinand Hart as the golem) really delivers on the smashing. They wreck those sets, baby!

I wish I could say more about the style of the film, but the bad condition of the transfer gave me only a partial impression of Duvivier's visual construction. Jump in and release a decent print, someone.