Alraune

Alraune, later renamed Unnatural: The Fruit of Evil, is a 1952 black and white West German science fiction film directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt, based on the 1911 novel Alraune by German novelist Hanns Heinz Ewers, starring Hildegard Knef and Erich von Stroheim. The film involves a scientist (von Stroheim) who creates a woman (Knef) who is beautiful and yet soulless, lacking any sense of morality. Plot Medical student Frank Braun (Karlheinz Böhm) arrives at his uncle's estate, Professor Jacob ten Brinken (Erich von Stroheim), to ask for a loan in order to continue his studies to become a doctor. Instead he comes across a beautiful woman Alraune (Hildegard Knef) gazing outside on the second story of the house. Upon asking the maid (Gardy Brombacher), she claims to not know of any guests staying at the moment and to return the next day to see his uncle. He meets with his friends Wolf Gontram (Rolf Henniger) and Count "Gerald" Geroldingen (Harry Meyen). Desperately anxious to know the identity of the mysterious woman, they decide return to ten Brinken's home. While Gerald and Wolf don't meet her, Frank manages to strike up a conversation with Alraune, and learns she is Professor Jacob ten Brinken's daughter, who ran away from the university, and asks him to meet her again the next day at the nearby sundial. Later, Frank meets with his uncle who greatly refuses to loan him the money he needs, so he goes to see an old family friend, Fürstin Wolkonska (Trude Hesterberg). Wolkonska believes Frank to be a good match of a husband for her daughter Olga (Julia Koschka), so she offers to loan the money Frank needs on the condition that he continues his studies at the Sorbonne University in Paris, as a means to keep him away from Alraune. When asked, she explains how his uncle was once a medical doctor who was expelled from the university for constructing bizarre abnormal experiments with artificial insemination. She further elaborates this as reasoning as to why ten Brinken refused to loan him money. The next day, Frank and Alraune meet as planned, they quickly profess their love and desire to be together. Though Frank informs her that he'll be leaving for Paris the next day, Alraune wishes to accompany him and leave her father. The two come up with a plan to meet the next day again at the sundial.