Spooktober 6: Rübezahls Marriage (1916)

 

Rübezahls Wedding (Rübezahls Hochzeit) is a 1916 German silent film written and directed by the duo of Rochus Gliese (who was nominated for one of the very first Academy Awards for his art direction on the first Best Picture: Sunrise) and Paul Wegener (who is very famous for his silent Golem horror films). It is variously listed as a fantasy drama or straight drama in most film databases, and mostly it does fall in the fantasy realm, as it is based on a fairy tale, but it also features some pretty horrific imagery. The film was actually one in a trilogy of films based on fairy tales made by the pair, the most famous of which was The Pied Piper of Hamelin released in 1918. The story centers around domesticity wrapped in folk lore. A giant/mountain spirit (Wegener), whom the film depicts as wild and burly in nature, is in love with a local elf and wants to marry her, only she only has eyes for a human and is actually in the employ of humans. . . This necessitates his rather comedic intermingling with humans in an attempt to secure his marriage to her (including a funny scene of his visit to a barber to get cleaned up). At times the mountain spirit is depicted as a giant, and in that form is more supernatural in nature; he also apparently has the ability to control the local weather in some fashion. At other times, he is shown as human sized with nary a non-human attribute, save for his unusual appearance.  The whole story is very much in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, and the script relies heavily on German superstitions if only to poke some fun at them. Wegener was one of those early actors who often appeared in film requiring heavy makeup jobs and this role was no exception--with it's wild wig and glued over-grown eyebrows, the giant/spirit looks more like an ogre or a the popular 19th century notion of a "cave man."  This film does survive and there is even a version of it on YouTube (however, it is a very crude print and the German intertiles are half-cut off in places). Though some of the film was shot on location, most of it was shot at Templehof Studios in Berlin and featured set designs by Gliese (who plays the barber)--a testament to his prodigous talent in that field. The film was released in Germany on the 1st of October in 1916. It runs for just a little longer than an hour.