But as for this film, this apparently acclaimed piece of early cinema, Edmund simply could not see the point of it. If you asked him, Alraune was nothing but a dismal dreariness, the story incomprehensible, the behaviour of the actors meaningless and overdone. He sneaked a quick look at his watch, and saw that they had about another half hour to sit through. To while away the time he looked surreptitiously at the others. They all seemed to be watching with interest – Lucy was clearly enthralled, which annoyed Edmund.
Francesca Holland looked enthralled as well. Edmund considered her for a moment, remembering that she had been staying with Trixie Smith, wondering whether the two of them had talked about Trixie’s research for the thesis. Presumably you did not share a house with somebody without referring to your work. What shall we have for supper tonight, oh, and by the way, I’ve found out who really killed Conrad Kline…Or: Your turn to pick up the dry-cleaning, and did I tell you that Lucretia von Wolff had an affair with a young man called Crispin Fane…Now Edmund came to think about it, he could see that this was exactly the kind of thing that might have been said. Was there any real danger here? He thought probably not. Still, Francesca Holland might need to be watched.
Michael Sallis was seated at the end of the small row of chairs, leaning back slightly, one arm resting on the arm of his chair. Edmund was about to look back at the screen, when Sallis half-turned his head to say something to Francesca. His profile caught the faint glow of the overhead light, and Edmund stared at him, the juddering screen images and the other people in the room momentarily forgotten. Deep inside his mind something was starting to thrum and he thought: I know that profile. Those eyes, that slightly too-wide mouth – I’ve seen them somewhere. But where? And then: why am I so concerned? he thought. So Michael Sallis resembles a client or someone on TV or the man who services the photocopier in the office. So what?
But as he turned back to the screen, the throbbing unease was increasing. His mind darted back and forth, trying to pin down the resemblance. There’s something to be wary of here. Something I need to identify. Someone I need to identify. A nervous sweat had formed on his forehead; he blotted it with his handkerchief, doing so discreetly, pretending to dab his nose as if he had a slight cold, and keeping his eyes fixed on the screen. In a moment he would look back at Sallis, doing so quickly, as people did when they could not read someone’s handwriting and tried the trick of taking it by surprise. He would take Michael Sallis by surprise, and hope his mind would make the identification ahead of his eyes.
He watched the screen for a few moments – something about Lucretia and the scientist outside a burning house. It was all very flimsy and childlike: anyone could see the actual house had been constructed out of cardboard and plywood.
And now Lucretia was in the centre of the action, flinging herself about with over-emphatic melodrama, covering her mouth with the back of her hand in the classic gesture of shock and fear, and then suddenly facing the camera in close-up, her eyes narrowed and glittering, her lips curving in a smile of evil calculation. She was plastered with make-up; Edmund thought it very unbecoming. All that eye-black, and some sort of dark shiny lipstick. He dared say it had been all very fashionable and daring in Lucretia’s heyday, but it was not his idea of what was attractive.
On the outer rim of his vision he saw Michael Sallis turn his head again, and this time he looked directly across at Sallis. And with a shock so deep that he felt as if a fist had slammed into his stomach, he knew exactly who Sallis reminded him of.
The film wound to the final reel, and the doomed scientist was lured to his fate against a background of claustrophobic skies and what Edmund considered some rather showy music. But he was only dimly aware of it, although he did look with attention at the climax, when Lucretia von Wolff, as Alraune, brought her creator to his grisly end.