A Daughter Of Destiny

A professor conceives a child by artificial insemination from a hanged murderer and a prostitute, raises the girl to see what comes of it, and what comes of it is Brigitte Helm: Alraune, cold, curious, ruinous to every man who comes near her, including the professor, who has fallen in love with his experiment. She learns her origin from his diary. Helm plays the part as an open question rather than a monster, and Paul Wegener is the professor. Henrik Galeen, who wrote The Golem and Nosferatu, directed from Hanns Heinz Ewers's novel; the circus and the casino are his set pieces and the professor's study is his ending. Ama-Film, 1928.