Movie Monsters

by Peter Haining

  After the death of their leader, his associates came to Rabbi Loew and confessed their wicked deed; they defended themselves, however, by saying that the man who had just died had persuaded them to do it. Rabbi Loew punished them by imposing a fine on them for the benefit of the Talmud school; in addition, he commanded them to observe forty fasts every year and read 150 psalms every Sabbath all their lives long.

  As mentioned before, Rabbi Loew made it a custom, every Friday afternoon, to assign for the Golem a sort of programme, a plan for the day’s work, for on the Sabbath he spoke to him only in extremely urgent cases. Generally, Rabbi Loew used to order him to do nothing else on Sabbath but be on guard and serve as a watcher.

  One Friday afternoon, Rabbi Loew forgot to give him the order for the next day, and the Golem had nothing to do.

  The day had barely drawn to a close and the people were getting ready for the ushering in of the Sabbath, when the Golem, like one mad, began running about in the Jewish section of the city, threatening to destroy everything. The want of employment made him awkward and wild. When the people saw this, they ran from him and cried: ‘Joseph Golem has gone mad!’

  The people were greatly terrified, and a report of the panic soon reached the Altneu Synagogue where Rabbi Loew was praying.

  The Sabbath had already been ushered in through the Song for the Sabbath day (Psalms xcii). What could be done? Rabbi Loew reflected on the evil consequences that might follow if the Golem should be running about thus uncontrolled. But to restore him to peace would be a profanation of the Sabbath.

  In his confusion, he forgot that it was a question of danger to human life and that in such cases the law permits, nay, commands the profanation of the Sabbath in order that the people exposed to danger might be saved.

  Rabbi Loew rushed out and, without seeing the Golem, called out into space: ‘Joseph, stop where you are!’

  And the people saw the Golem at the place where he happened to find himself that moment, remain standing, like a post. In a single instant, he had overcome the violence of his fury.

  Rabbi Loew was soon informed where the Golem stood, and he betook himself to him. He whispered into his ear: ‘Go home and to bed.’ And the Golem obeyed him as willingly as a child.

  Then Rabbi Loew went back to the House of Prayer and ordered that the Sabbath Song be repeated.

  After that Friday, Rabbi Loew never again forgot to give the Golem orders for the Sabbath on a Friday afternoon.

  To his confidential friends he said: ‘The Golem could have laid waste all Prague, if I had not calmed him down in time.’

  After a long time had passed when the community was no longer molested by blood accusations, Rabbi Loew sent for his son-in-law, Rabbi Jizchak, the Priest, and his disciple, Jacob Sasson, the Levite – those who had participated in the creation of the Golem – and he said to them: ‘Now the Golem has become superfluous, for a blood impeachment can by this time no longer occur in any country. This wrong needs no longer be feared. We will therefore destroy the Golem.’

  It was on Lag-B’Omer of the year 5353 (1593). Rabbi Loew ordered the Golem not to sleep that night in the Rabbinical house, but to take his bed over to the garret of the Altneu Synagogue and to sleep there. That was done in private, as it was about midnight.

  When two o’clock came that night, there arrived at Rabbi Loew’s house, his son-in-law Rabbi Jizchak, the Priest, and his disciple, Jacob Sasson the Levite, and Rabbi Loew put the question to them as to whether a dead body, like the Golem, would constitute an object of impurity like unto any other dead body. [To touch the body of a dead person renders one unclean, according to Jewish law. See Numbers xix, 14.] The question was significant, because, if the answer were ‘yes,’ the Priest would not have been able to participate in the act of destroying the Golem. [In the Bible, the Priest is forbidden to become unclean. Lev. xxi, 1.]

  Rabbi Loew decided that this case was different, and that the Priest was able to participate in the destruction of the work.

  They ascended to the garret of the Altneu Synagogue, the assistant, Abraham Chayim, walking in advance with two burning candles.

  The three men began their work of destruction, the annihilation of the Golem.

  Fundamentally, they did everything in the reverse order to that followed in creating the Golem. If, at the creation, they had stood at the feet of the Golem, opposite his head, they now stood at his head opposite his feet. Similarly, the words from the Book of Creation were read backwards.

  After this task was accomplished, the Golem was transformed again into a clod of clay, as he had been before life was instilled into him.

  Rabbi Loew called the sexton Abraham Chayim, took the candles from him and ordered him to undress the Golem to his shirt.

  He was then covered with old prayer robes and remains of Hebrew books, which, according to the Jewish custom, were stored in the garret of the synagogue.

  Abraham Chayim burned the Golem’s clothing, inconspicuously, following the orders of Rabbi Loew.

  In the morning, news spread in the Jewish ghetto that Joseph Golem had disappeared from the town during the night. Only a few individuals, ‘men of a higher station,’ knew the truth.

  Rabbi Loew had it announced in all Synagogues and Houses of Prayer that it was strictly forbidden for anybody to mount to the garret of the Altneu Synagogue. Furthermore, the remains of torn prayer books and other sacred things were no longer to be stored there.

  AFTERWORD

  The following legend was, until now, almost unknown. According to it, the remains of the Golem do not lie, as is popularly believed, in the garret of the Altneu Synagogue, but on the gallows-hill outside the city. The legend upon which this conclusion is based is as follows:

  The sexton, Abraham Chayim, had long been going about with the idea of imitating Rabbi Loew and making a Golem of his own. He had been present on the bank of the Moldau River when the Rabbi had made the Golem and had taken note of the Schem (Name) which had given the Golem the breath of life. He too would, by the use of this Name, create such a man. His son-in-law, Ascher Balbierer, who spent much time poring over the Kabbala could, if need be, help in the execution of the plan. Now that the Golem lay lifeless, the will to awaken him and put him to uses of his own surged up strongly in the breast of Abraham Chayim.

  One night he was on the point of mounting to the garret in order to look upon the Golem. But he was terrified and his heart became weak. He initiated his brother-in-law, Abraham ben Secharja, the sexton of the Pinkas Synagogue, into the secret. On the following night both men climbed up to the garret of the Altneu Synagogue, took hold of the lump of clay which had at one time been the Golem, and carried it over to the nearby Pinkas Synagogue, where they concealed it behind the Almemor (reading desk). To Ascher Balbierer, the son-in-law of Abraham Chayim, was assigned the task of finding out the Schem, with the help of which the Golem could be called to life. When Ascher after several days stated that he believed that he had come upon the mystic alphabetical formula in the Sepher Jezirah (the book of creation), the three men carried the Golem, in the dead of night, from the synagogue in the Pinkas Gasse through various solitary streets and alleys, into the cellar of a house in the Zeikerl, also known as Zigeuner Gasse, which partly belonged to Ascher and in which he lived. Down in the cellar, they tried one night after another to follow the process of Rabbi Loew and his disciples, according to the remembrance of Abraham Chayim. But these attempts were all absolutely without result.

  At about this time, there broke out in Prague an epidemic, in the course of which twelve hundred persons died. Two of the five children of Ascher Balbierer were also snatched away, although there was no case of the plague in any other house in that street. The wife of Ascher had from the beginning strenuously resisted the bringing of the Golem into her house, because she feared that in case the action were discovered, her father would lose his position as sexton in the Altneu Synagogue, while her husband and her uncle would be punished for violating the
command of the rabbinical council against anyone going up to the garret in which the remains of the Golem had been placed. Besides that, she noticed with considerable concern that, because of his nocturnal exertions, her husband had neglected his business. Now that the children were stricken, she cried that the misfortune had visited them because the Golem had been brought to the house, and when the children died her protestations could not be resisted.

  After the two corpses had been washed and placed in their coffins, one of them was taken out of his and placed together with the other. The remains of the Golem were then placed in the empty coffin. A waggon was hired and the coffins were taken at nightfall to the cemetery for victims of the plague, outside of the city. Here Abraham Chayim and Abraham Secharja took the coffin with the Golem in it and carried it up to the Gallows Hill, which lies one mile and two hundred yards from the Neistaedter Gate on the Vienna state road, and placed it on that side of the hill which is turned toward the city.

  There, it is said, the Golem was later buried, and there he lies to this day.

  THE BEETLE

  by Richard Marsh

  In the early years of the British film industry very few fantasy films were produced, there being a preference for comedy, love stories and murder mysteries. Indeed, only one of the pioneer studios, Barker Motion Photography, seemed to sense the potential popularity of the horror film. The company had been founded by a former photographer, W G Barker, who took over an old mansion with extensive grounds at Ealing Green in London and there built three studio stages, largely of glass, with a little auxiliary lighting. To make his films, Barker employed a permanent staff of just two carpenters, two scene painters, two electricians, a prop man, a cameraman, and an assistant, Jack W Smith, who served as producer on most of the pictures. Barker was, though, an adventurous film-maker, never content simply to follow in the footsteps of his rivals, and it was quite a gamble when he decided in 1919 to bring a popular horror novel, The Beetle, to the screen. His boldness resulted in the first feature-length British horror movie, which is still regarded as a minor classic today.

  The Beetle had been written by Richard Marsh (1857–1915) in 1897, the year in which Bram Stoker’s Dracula first appeared, and at least one critic considered it a superior tale. The Academy’s reviewer said, ‘Dracula by Mr Bram Stoker was creepy, but Mr Marsh goes one, oh! many more than one, better.’ The book, a tale of sorcery about a High Priestess able to transform herself into a horrific, giant beetle, quickly ran into several editions. Although the prolffic author went on to write many more sensational novels, like with Bram Stoker and Dracula he was to remain forever associated with The Beetle.

  When W G Barker decided to film The Beetle as a five-reel movie, he employed one of his regular scriptwriters, Helen Blizzard, to adapt Marsh’s novel, and she based the subsequent picture on the activities of dashing Paul Lessingham who has unwittingly fallen into the clutches of the demonic High Priestess. Indeed, the essence of the film lies in the passages of the book, here included, where Lessingham reveals his plight to a detective called Augustus Champnell.

  To direct The Beetle, Barker hired American-born Alexander Butler, a silent melodrama specialist who had once been an actor himself under the name André Beaulieu, and had already made some successful thrillers, including The Anarchist’s Doom (1913) and The Sorrows Of Satan (1917). The hero, Paul Lessingham, was played by Hebden Foster, while the central role of the girl who can transmogrify into a huge insect was taken by Leal Douglas. This dark-haired beauty, with sinister good looks and the most beguiling eyes, deserves the accolade ‘Britain’s first horror movie star’, for afier The Beetle she also gave memorably chilling performances in Belphegor The Mountebank (1921) and The Uninvited Guest (1923). It is many years now since I saw a faded print of The Beetle, but her transformation into the creature of the title was one of those unforgettable cinematic tours de force that helped develop my growing interest in the horror genre in both books and films. I am therefore delighted to be including the extract that follows.

  * * *

  On the afternoon of Friday, June 2, 18–, I was entering in my case-book some memoranda having reference to the very curious matter of the Duchess of Datchet’s Deed-box. It was about two o’clock. Andrews came in and laid a card upon my desk. On it was inscribed ‘Mr Paul Lessingham.’

  ‘Show Mr Lessingham in.’

  Andrews showed him in. I was, of course, familiar with Mr Lessingham’s appearance, but it was the first time I had had with him any personal communication. He held out his hand to me.

  ‘You are Mr Champnell?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I believe that I have not had the honour of meeting you before, Mr Champnell, but with your father, the Earl of Glenlivet, I have the pleasure of some acquaintance.’

  I bowed. He looked at me, fixedly, as if he were trying to make out what sort of man I was.

  ‘You are very young, Mr Champnell.’

  ‘I have been told that an eminent offender in that respect once asserted that youth is not of necessity a crime.’

  ‘And you have chosen a singular profession – one in which one hardly looks for juvenility.’

  ‘You yourself, Mr Lessingham, are not old. In a statesman one expects grey hairs – I trust that I am sufficiently ancient to be able to do you service.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I think it possible. I have heard of you more than once, Mr Champnell, always to your advantage. My friend, Sir John Seymour, was telling me, only the other day, that you have recently conducted for him some business, of a very delicate nature, with much skill and tact; and he warmly advised me, if ever I found myself in a predicament, to come to you. I find myself in a predicament now.’

  Again I bowed.

  ‘A predicament, I fancy, of an altogether unparalleled sort. I take it that anything I may say to you will be as though it were said to a father confessor.’

  ‘You may rest assured of that.’

  ‘Good. Then, to make the matter clear to you I must begin by telling you a story – if I may trespass on your patience to that extent. I will endeavour not to be more verbose than the occasion requires.’

  I offered him a chair, placing it in such a position that the light from the window would have shone full upon his face. With the calmest possible air, as if unconscious of my design, he carried the chair to the other side of my desk, twisting it right round before he sat on it – so that now the light was at his back and on my face. Crossing his legs, clasping his hands about his knee, he sat in silence for some moments, as if turning something over in his mind. He glanced round the room.

  ‘I suppose, Mr Champnell, that some singular tales have been told in here.’

  ‘Some very singular tales indeed. I am never appalled by singularity. It is my normal atmosphere.’

  ‘And yet I should be disposed to wager that you have never listened to so strange a story as that which I am about to tell you now. So astonishing, indeed, is the chapter in my life which I am about to open out to you, that I have more than once had to take myself to task, and fit the incidents together with mathematical accuracy in order to assure myself of its perfect truth.’

  He paused. There was about his demeanour that suggestion of reluctance which I not uncommonly discover in individuals who are about to take the skeletons from their cupboards and parade them before my eyes. His next remark seemed to point to the fact that he perceived what was passing through my thoughts.

  ‘My position is not rendered easier by the circumstance that I am not of a communicative nature. I am not in sympathy with the spirit of the age which craves for personal advertisement. I hold that the private life even of a public man should be held inviolate. I resent, with peculiar bitterness, the attempts of prying eyes to peer into matters which, as it seems to me, concern myself alone. You must, therefore, bear with me, Mr Champnell, if I seem awkward in disclosing to you certain incidents in my career which I had hoped would continue locked in the secret deposit
ory of my own bosom, at any rate till I was carried to the grave. I am sure you will suffer me to stand excused if I frankly admit that it is only an irresistible chain of incidents which has constrained me to make of you a confidant.’

  ‘My experience tells me, Mr Lessingham, that no one ever does come to me until they are compelled. In that respect I am regarded as something worse even than a medical man.’

  A wintry smile flitted across his features – it was clear that he regarded me as a good deal worse than a medical man. Presently he began to tell me one of the most remarkable tales which even I had heard. As he proceeded I understood how strong, and how natural, had been his desire for reticence. On the mere score of credibility he must have greatly preferred to have kept his own counsel. For my part I own, unreservedly, that I should have deemed the tale incredible had it been told me by Tom, Dick, or Harry, instead of by Paul Lessingham.