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Alraune

CBUB Wins: 0
CBUB Losses: 0
Win Percentage: 0%

Added by: Z451

Read more about Alraune at: Wikipedia

Official Site: Public Domain

Alraune, later renamed Unnatural: The Fruit of Evil, is a 1952 black and white West German science fiction 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.

Medical student Frank Braun (Karlheinz Bohm) 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 Ralph Goutram (Rolf Henniger) and Count "Gerald" Geroldingen, (Harry Meyenrin). Desperately anxious to know the identity of the mysterious woman, they decide return to ten Brinken's home. While Gerald and Ralph don't meet her, Frank manages to strike a conversation with Alraune, and learn's she is his 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, Fuerstin Wolkonska (Trude Hesterberg). Wolkonski 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. Once ten Brinken learns of the their plan, he changes his mind about the loan, as a way to keep Alraune at bay, to which Frank refuses as confesses his love for Alraune. Ten Brinken sees no other option than to tell the truth surrounding his "daughter". He learns, through a medical diary, that with the help of Fuerstin he was able to successfully artificially impregnate a seedy prostate with the sperm of a murderer trialed to be hanged. He goes on to elaborate how the seed of evil and malefic traits from her biological parents have only grown since her "unnatural birth". Ten brink details how she has the ability "lures men to their demise", to which Frank is horrified by the true counts of her nature. He leaves for Paris that night without Alraune. Devastated and betrayed, she begins to show more signs of lacking any soul or morality and begins. She suggests to Ten brink to buy acres of land, but upon arriving they learn that it is covered with sulfur spring. While her mother travels to Paris, Olga stays with ten Brinken in his home. She receives a later from her mother in regards to her pre-arranged engagement to Frank, which doesn't sit well with Alraune. Alraune manages to convince Olga that no man who truly loves a woman would pronounce a proposal through a letter. Devastated though influenced by Alraune, Olga attempts suicide by poisoning herself.

Alraune has not been a contender in any CBUB matches.