When I learned, from some Epinions correspondence, there was interest in a 1926 Silent Movie entitled FAUST, I was surprised. I should not have been. The Legend of Faust is perhaps the most pervasive model in Western Literature, after the story of Jesus Christ. (Indeed, some say the stories are somehow interlinked.) That a wandering conjurer, Johann Faust of Germany (1488-1541), should be so fascinating is no less surprising than that an obscure carpenter from Galilee had a major religion founded in his name.

There is something compelling, cautionary, worrying, to the Western Mind in this fable rising with Capitalism and The Plague(s) about a good man who is tempted by the Devil to trade his soul for power, women and riches. The life of the original Johann Faust parallels that of Jacob Fugger, and all the little Fuggers, good weavers of Augsburg, whose sails caught the winds of the demi-millenium to parlay a trade in Eastern spices into the first great European merchant bank of the 16th Century. They became knights in the modern sense, financed the wars for Maximillian I of the Holy Roman Empire, dealt in the Papal Indulgences leading to the Protestantism of Martin Luther. Their lives followed the metaphor of Faust.

Christopher Marlowe, knowing a hot legend when he saw one, made Faust the basis of his best play in 1593. Goethe created the most famous version in 1808, and ever since, the matrix of the story keeps popping up in novels, stories, operas, ballets and musicals.

In the cinema, two dozen direct versions of Faust, spanning Russia to the United States, have been produced, and dozens more films have used the plot. From obscure entries like MAN WITH A STAR (Vidor, 1955) to superb films like THE RED SHOES (Powell, 1948), motion pictures, perhaps in their ability to create illusion, have thrived on the story. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore made a comic British version, BEDAZZLED, in 1967. The best American telling is William Dieterle's ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY (1941), based on Stephen Vincent Benet's short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster," with Walter Huston leaping up as a wonderful Devil.

The most renowned motion picture version of the legend itself is F. W. Murnau's FAUST (1926).

The film begins with the Apocalyptic words: "Behold! The portals of Darkness are open and the shadows of the Dead hunt over the earth."

We see the Four Horsemen, the bustling city, and then Mephisto (Emil Jannings as The Devil) listening to the learned Alchemist Faust (Gosta Ekman) declare that Man has the freedom to choose between Good and Evil. Mephisto confidently wagers Control of the Earth with the Archangel Gabriel (Werner Fuetterer), if he can but persuade Faust to give up his soul.

In the center of the Medieval City -- essentially not so different than a modern New York, Chicago or San Francisco -- people are trading, carousing, wenching. Then, in one of the first great special effects in Motion Pictures, a huge dark cloud rises above them, assuming the wings of a Condor, with Mephisto's head peering down at his prey.

Soon, the revelers begin to fall over with The Plague. Faust works furiously in his laboratory to produce a cure, but his anodynes are useless. He throws out his books and then, after praying to no avail, his Bible. Outside, the people turn from indulgences of prosperity to the debauchery of despair.

The time is right, and Mephisto offers his timeless bargain to the desperate Faust. Like accepting that "Free Cell Phone Service," Faust renounces God for a day in return for Mephisto's help. "One day, try it!" the Devil exclaims, holding up a large, improved hour glass. "Just one Trial Day!"

Faust samples the riches of the East, the power of a Noble, and he steals the most beautiful bride in the World (Hanna Ralph) from the Duke of Parma. But, of course, by then, it is not enough. He must return to his home town to have Gretchen (the lovely Camilla Horn), most beautiful virgin of the City. And, for an extension on his loan, he has her.

The result is the same then as it is now.

There is a farcical sub plot, in which Mephisto flirts with Gretchen's Aunt Martha, an old witch, in order for Faust to carry out his seduction. He takes a less humorous hand when he murders Gretchen's brother Valentin (Wilhelm Dieterle), who has attempted to defend his sister's virtue. Mephisto blames the deed on Faust.

F. W. Murnau is master of German Expressionism. One has only to compare this film with those on similar themes by his most serious rival of the time, Fritz Lang (SIEGFRIED, 1923; KRIMHILD'S REVENGE, 1924), to see how very good he was. By the time he directed FAUST, Murnau had done nearly a dozen films (some of them only recently available in the United States), including his great version of Dracula (NOSFERATU, 1922).

Murnau's casting of FAUST had consequences for the people involved. On the strength of his performance as Mephisto, Emil Jannings was brought to Hollywood, where he starred in several successful films. But when he received an offer he couldn't refuse from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Reichminister for Culture, Jannings returned to Germany to make films, and died in disgrace after World War II. Before picking Camilla Horn for the part of Gretchen, Murnau rejected Leni Riefenstahl, who dreamt of becoming a star in Hollywood, but as a director, was to make her own pact with Adolph Hitler in TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (1934). Tempted himself by Hollywood, Murnau wanted D. W. Griffith star Lillian Gish for Gretchen, but she insisted on her own cameraman.

Murnau did go to Hollywood the next year, where he directed three of the important transitional films of the Silent/Sound Era: SUNRISE (1927, winner of the first Academy Award), OUR DAILY BREAD (1930) and TABU (1931, co-directed by Robert Flaherty (who quit mid-production). Murnau was killed in 1931, at the age of 43, when his chauffeured car crashed. It is sad and interesting to speculate what he might have accomplished had he lived so long as Fritz Lang.

FINAL NOTES: Wilhelm Dieterle, who plays Gretchen's brother Valentin came to the United States in 1930, shortly after Murnau. He anglicized his name to William Dieterle, and helped Max Reinhardt direct a delightful production of William Shakespeare's gentle take on Faust: A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM (1935). He went on to direct a series of Warner Brother's biographical films, very successful and much admired in their day: THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR (1935), THE LIFE OF EMIL ZOLA (1937), JUAREZ (1939), DR ERLICH'S MAGIC BULLET (1940), etc.

The next year, he formed a short-lived counterpart of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the RKO Lot. Its most fruitful product was the aforementioned American Faust, ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY/THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER of 1941 (for which, the musical score won Bernard Herrmann his first Academy Award).

As I write this review, it occurs to me that another film I admire, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY (Lewin, 1945), based on Oscar Wilde's novella, must also have the Faust Legend as its source.

Murnau's FAUST was beautifully restored in 1997, with a new musical score by Timothy Brock. It runs a full 116 minutes. This version is the one I recommend.

Oh, yes! A remake of the Cook-Moore BEDAZZLED appeared last year, with Brendan Fraser as the Faust figure and Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil's Helper. (Unfortunately, it was a disappointment.) And a highly promising film on Murnau, SHADOW OF A VAMPIRE, starring the ubiquitous John Malkovich, came out later in the fall. (Although it won Willem Dafoe an Academy Award nomination as Max Schreck, undoubtedly the most horrific Dracula, the film itself was a travesty.)

Finally, taking into account what I've said, it is great fun (and a little creepy) to imagine Bill Gates or some other American leader in the title role while watching F. W. Murnau's FAUST.

Cast your own Mephisto.

Enjoy . . . but be careful what you wish for.



Recommended: Yes