The Silent German Film Algol: Tragedy Of Power - 1760 Words
Free Essay: The following essay serves at part 3 of my series on the history of science fiction films. Please take a moment to check out part 1 and part 2 if...
The following essay serves at part 3 of my series on the history of science fiction films. Please take a moment to check out part 1 and part 2 if you haven't done so already.

I've also made a video version of those articles, which you can watch here and here.

In the 1920s, science fiction movies began to be a bit more common. In 1920, there were two.

One was a German film titled Algol: Tragedy of Power. It was directed by Hans Werckmeister and starred Emil Jannings, who later became to the first person to receive an Academy Award.

The plot centers around an alien that gives a coal miner a machine that could allow him to rule the world. Algol features sets by Walter Reimann, who was a designer on the famous German horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Algol was thought to be lost for many years until …show more content…

It currently has a stellar 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes as well as an 8.3 out of 10 user rating on IMDB.

Moving on, in 1928 we have yet another version of the Alraune legend. The silent German film was directed by Henrik Galeen and featured Brigitte Helm, who starred in Metropolis.

The morbid plot involves a prostitute being inseminated with the semen of a hanged man. A plot point unique to this version is that the prostitute kills all men who fall in love with her.

This one is generally considered better than the earlier versions of the myth.

In the final year of the decade, there were three notable sci-fi flicks released. The first I'll mention is an American film called The Mysterious Island. It was produced by MGM and directed by Lucien Hubbard, who won one of the first Academy Awards for producing the 1927 film Wings.

The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Jules Verne, who also wrote Around the World in Eighty Days, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the