Liebe Tod Und Teufel (1934)

adapted from Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp" · Gov Bud Hudnut · 2023-05-02

Discerning members of the cinema-going public would have detected in this production a subtext at odds with the Nazi project. The theme of selling one's soul to the devil in exchange for temporal happiness is an old one, particularly in Germany (see the Faust legend). At the onset of the Third Reich, just such a compact was being offered to the subjects of that tyranny- by a figure of almost mythic evil, the so-called Führer. If the citizen will simply surrender his soul to the Prince of Darkness, his every need and wish are to be fulfilled. And the conditional requirement that escape from…