Edith Heerdegen Movies
The Serpent's Egg, or Das Schlangenei is director Ingmar Bergman's second English language production (The Touch was his first). It is, however, his first completely non-Swedish production, made after his voluntary self-exile from Sweden over taxation issues. Set in Berlin in the early 1920s, it explores the fear and despair the city evokes in Manuela and Abel Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann and David Carradine), two Jewish trapeze artists. The suicide of Manuela's husband (Abel's brother), has stranded them in Berlin. Berlin is shown to already possess the sinister elements of cruelty and anti-Semitism which laid the groundwork for the later Nazi takeover. A series of misadventures gets them sent to a medical clinic for treatment. However, the clinic is actually a site for Nazi-type "racial" experiments on humans, which generally either madden or kill the subjects. Das Schlangenei was savaged by the critics for its improbable-seeming story and more particularly, for casting David Carradine (best known for his earlier appearances in the Kung Fu U.S. television series) in a crucial role. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, David Carradine, (more)
- 1972
Part international spy thriller, part social commentary, this German film is adapted from the best-seller by Johannes Maria Simmel. After the Russian re-occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, large numbers of people flee to German refugee camps. Some of those people are wanted by Soviet intelligence services, others are wanted by Western ones. Many are wanted by both groups. A reporter with a German scandal-sheet decides to pursue the story, but he gets involved with some of the people being pursued (even saving some of their lives), and grows increasingly disgusted with the phony objectivity he is forced into. That "objectivity" would have required him to let all of his subjects be killed. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
