Salamander (film)

Salamander
Directed by	Grigori Roshal
Written by	Georgiy Grebner Anatoli Lunacharsky
Starring	Bernhard Goetzke Natalya Rozenel Nikolay Khmelyov Sergey Komarov
Cinematography	Louis Forestier Phil Jutzi
Production companies	Mezhrabpomfilm Prometheus-Film
Distributed by	90 minutes
Release date	12 April 1928 (1928-04-12)
Countries	Soviet Union Germany
Languages	Silent Russian/German intertitles

Salamander (Russian: Саламандра, romanized: Salamandra) is a 1928 Soviet-German silent biopic film directed by Grigori Roshal and starring Bernhard Goetzke, Natalya Rozenel and Nikolay Khmelyov.

Plot

The film is based on real events and reveals the tragic episodes from the life of the Austrian biologist scientist-materialist Paul Kammerer (1880-1926), hunted by regressive scientists and Catholic reactionaries who committed suicide.

The film is set in Leipzig, Germany, which is ruled by clergy and aristocracy, at a time when fascism is starting to emerge, and the working class is forced to live in poverty. Professor Zange is employed here and he is one of the few who sympathizes with the poor. The scientist uses salamanders for his experiments and learns that their inheritance is dependent on external factors. As he makes this discovery he becomes a menace to the existing political system and the clergy conspires with the aristocracy to get rid of him.

Cast

• Bernhard Goetzke as Professor Zange
• Natalya Rozenel as Felicia, his wife
• Nikolay Khmelyov as Prince Ruprecht Karlstein, fascist
• Sergey Komarov as Pater Brzhezinskiy, jesuit
• Vladimir Fogel as baron-reactionist
• Aleksandr Chistyakov as Prayer, pressman
• Mikhail Doller as Filonov, Zange's assistant
• Elsa Temary as Bertha, Zange's assistant
• Anatoli Lunacharsky

Bibliography

• Christie, Ian & Taylor, Richard. The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896-1939. Routledge, 2012.
• Bernhard Götzke in Moskau. In: Wochenbericht der Gesellschaft für kulturelle Verbindung der Sowjetunion mit dem Auslande 4 (1928), Nr. 32, p. 18 (Short article about a reception in honour of Goetzke in Moscow by the Society for Cultural Relations of the Soviet Union with Foreign Countries on the occasion of the completion of the film "Salamander" with speeches by Olga Kameneva, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Grigori Roshal, Aleksej A. Sidorov and Goetzke (in German, with 1 photo)).

External links

• Salamander at IMDb