The Serpent's Egg

A film even most Bergman enthusiasts dislike. However, as weak as it is, I have to admit I found a lot to like about it. First, the bad: David Carradine is pretty awful. He's had an uneven career, giving several... Full review

Upon getting to the end of The Serpent's Egg, my first reaction was: "how could a director of Bergman's calibre have made a movie as bad as this?" When I'd had time to reflect on the film, I realised that... Full review

In November of 1923, in a Berlin where a pack of cigarettes costs four million marks and people has lost faith in the present and future days, the alcoholic and unemployed American acrobat Abel Rosenberg (David Carradine) loses his brother... Full review

I can't quite understand these alleged Bergman "fans" who say that this film is somehow lacking. Whereas "The Serpent's Egg" is not on par with say, "Fanny and Alexander" or even "Scenes from a Marriage," and even though it is,... Full review

One can look at Ingmar Bergman's the Serpent's Egg as being many things, but it should not be looked at through the same prism that one looks at say Through a Glass Darkly or Scenes from a Marriage. This is... Full review

The film is interesting, of course -it tells about the rise of Nazi power. But this is the less "bergmanian" film of Ingmar Bergman. It's not an intimate portrait of people -as the Swedish director always does. Here we have... Full review

Highly unusual and underrated. Bergman says volumes about the future he saw before us in 1977 by returning to 1923 and making what to the casual observer seems to be a film about hindsight. What is most unusual about his... Full review

Fear, Loathing, and Despair in Berlin, November 1923This film universally considered "the master's failure" but I don't agree with the statement. It is very different from the rest of Bergman's films I've seen but that does not make it failure... Full review

When asked by an interviewer about his notorious 1969 flop `A Place for Lovers,' Italian director Vittorio de Sica, who had previously made some of the most influential films in the history of cinema, simply replied `I'm an artist. Artists... Full review

This must have seemed like such a great idea at the time. Put Ingmar Bergman (arguably one of the finest filmmakers of our time) at the helm of a big-budget international horror film starring the notable David Carradine and his... Full review

Carradine is actually rather good, giving the impression that he was flattered by the invite and strived to give Bergman everything he had. Instead psychological evil, heroes with deteriorating minds and scenery limited to staring faces and tortured eyes, Bergman externalizes the threat and comes up with a blanket evil in the not-too-original form of proto-Nazi medical madness. ... Full Review

Ingmar Bergman is a great filmmaker, but in " The Serpent's Egg " he did not make a good film, and so maybe you'll forgive me if I begin, not on a solemn note, but on an irreverent one, with a little background from the period the film was made. A frustrating ending for a sterile film. ... Full Review

A native of Berlin, Berkel studied at the German Film and Television Academy in his hometown, and debuted onscreen in the late '70s, landing one of his first major roles in the legendary Ingmar Bergman's poorly received drama The Serpent's Egg (as a student in 1920s Germany during the Nazi regime). ... Full Review

Unlike Troell, however, the script for "The Serpent's Egg" was Bergman original). Admittedly in awe of the director's talent and reputation, Carradine took the job more for a chance to work with Ullman, and his highly personal observations characterize Bergman as a master puppeteer; inexplicably practicing devilish mind-games and giving little support to the American actor. ... Full Review

The Serpent's Egg , or Das Schlangenei is director Ingmar Bergman 's second English language production ( The Touch was his first). It is, however, his first completely non-Swedish production, made after his voluntary self-exile from Sweden over taxation issues. ... Full Article

Set in poverty-stricken Berlin in 1923, Bergman's first film made outside of Sweden is a dark tale of murder, alcoholism, and inhumanity. At the center of the story are Carradine and his former sister-in-law, Ullmann, who once participated in a... ... Full Article

The Serpent's Egg, or Das Schlangenei is director Ingmar Bergman's second English language production (The Touch was his first). It is, however, his first completely non-Swedish production, made after his voluntary self-exile from Sweden over taxation issues. ... Full Article