The Serpent’s Egg (1977)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Serpent’s Egg (1977) – I. Bergman

Ingmar Bergman’s first film shot outside of Sweden (and second in English, after 1971’s The Touch).  This stars David Carradine (selected based on his work on the Woody Guthrie biopic Bound for Glory, 1976) and Bergman’s muse Liv Ullmann. It takes place in 1923 Berlin where inflation has made the Deutschmark completely worthless. Carradine is a former trapeze artist now out of work and a Jew.  The latter is significant because Bergman seems to want to say something about the factors that led to Hitler’s rise and the Holocaust. But he takes a long time to get to the point (and to reveal the meaning of the title).  So, for most of the film, we are treated to Carradine (as Abel Rosenberg) wandering Berlin, often drunk, in and out of the cabaret where his ex-sister-in-law (played by Ullmann) works.  He is frequently interviewed by the police (led by Goldfinger’s Gert Fröbe) who seem supportive but overly interested in his whereabouts and doings (based on his brother’s suicide and his proximity to other recent victims, murders or suicides).  It seems as though we may get a murder mystery from Bergman but it doesn’t really end up that way – instead, we are treated to a sort of twist ending, meant to foreshadow later Nazi experimentation on humans (even as Hitler’s short-lived Munich Putsch is ironically used to suggest he has no future as a leader in Germany).  Bergman does establish a compelling time and place here (with his biggest budget yet) but Carradine is an odd fit for the role and the looseness of the screenplay leaves viewers wondering too much of the time.