The Serpent's Egg (1977)

Director:

Ingmar Bergman

Writer:

Ingmar Bergman (writer)

Release Date:

15 February 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

Berlin 1923! A dangerous time to be alive and stay that way!

Plot:

Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg follows a week in the life of Abel Rosenberg, an out-of-work American...

Plot Keywords:

1920s | Nazism | Terror | Actual Animal Killed | Inhumanity

Cast

David Carradine	...	Abel Rosenberg
Liv Ullmann	...	Manuela Rosenberg
Heinz Bennent	...	Hans Vergerus
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Isolde Barth	...	Girl in uniform
Toni Berger	...	Mr. Rosenberg
Christian Berkel	...	Student
Richard Bohne	...	Police officer
Paula Braend	...	Mrs. Hemse
Erna Brünell	...	Mrs. Rosenberg
Paul Burian	...	Experiment person
Paul Bürks	...	Cabaret comedian
Hildegard Busse	...	Prostitute
Gaby Dohm	...	Woman with baby
Hans Eichler	...	Max
Emil Feist	...	Miser
Kai Fischer
Gert Fröbe	...	Inspector Bauer
Herbert Fux
Renate Grosser	...	Prostitute
Heino Hallhuber	...	Bride
Georg Hartmann	...	Hollinger
Edith Heerdegen	...	Mrs. Holle
Rosemarie Heinikel	...	Girl in uniform
Klaus Hoffmann
Grischa Huber	...	Stella
Harry Kalenberg	...	Coroner
Volkert Kraeft
Andrea L'Arronge	...	Girl in uniform
Gunther Malzacher	...	Husband
Lisi Mangold	...	Mikaela
Beverly McNeely	...	Girl in uniform
Günter Meisner
Anne Mertin
Hubert Mittendorf	...	Comforter
Kyra Mladeck	...	Miss Dorst
Heide Picha	...	Wife
Hans Quest	...	Dr. Silbermann
Charles Régnier	...	Doctor
Walter Schmidinger	...	Solomon
Irene Steinbeisser	...	Groom
Fritz Strassner	...	Dr. Soltermann
Glynn Turman	...	Monroe
Ellen Umlauf	...	Hostess
Hertha von Walther	...	Woman in street
Wolfgang Weiser	...	Civil servant
James Whitmore	...	The Priest
Ralf Wolter

Also Known As:

Das Schlangenei (West Germany)

Runtime:

Argentina:120 min | USA:119 min

Country:

USA | West Germany

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Netherlands:16 (original rating) | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:18 | Finland:K-18 | Sweden:15 | USA:R | Norway:18 | UK:18 (video rating) (1990) | UK:X (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Bavaria Studios, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Company:

De Laurentiis

Trivia:

Dustin Hoffman was offered the lead role but turned it down.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: The Nazi-looking thugs that are beating up people are wearing Model 1943 German army caps and 1940s style clothing. This film is supposed to take place in the 1920s.

Quotes:

Abel Rosenberg: I wake up from a nightmare and find that real life is worse than the dream.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Away from Home (2004) (V)

Well done allegory for events leading to the rise of Hitler.

The title, The Serpent's Egg, had me wondering for a moment until I realized that it did not refer to the the Doctor and his bizarre experiments nor to Abel and his misery, but to the encapsulated Germany of the 1920s and the environment that led to Hitler's ascent in the 1930s. That is, Germany being the 'egg', Hitler and the Nazis as the 'Serpent', and the environment as the embryo of the egg.

In many ways, this is a cynical film, in that it attempts to show that degradation, fear and loss of life and livelihood is sometimes stronger than humanity and even love. Isn't this true about Germany in the 1920s, and other nations at other times as well? We only have to look at ourselves after the attacks of 9/11 to see a time when fear overcame reason. Fear allowed us to meekly accept the chipping away of our own civil rights and privacy, and also government sponsored torture.

It also gives us a glimpse at one of Hitler's truisms, which is that if he could have a person at age 7, then that person would be a Nazi for life. The experimenting Doctor re-states this in his observations that the sons and daughters of the defeated German populace will be the ones who create the new German society, of which he already is a part with his inhumane human experiments.

Of course, all this is done with hindsight, so how can it be wrong? It can't, but then it's still a good review of a period in Germany that many Americans know nothing about, and should learn if they want the answers to the question of how Naziism came to be. It wasn't just some sort of aberration never seen in history before nor repeated.