The Serpent’s Egg

Ingmar Bergman made his only English-language film after leaving Sweden over tax issues. The Serpent's Egg, a drama set in 1923 Berlin during the depths of the postwar Depression, is produced by Dino De Laurentiis and shot in Germany with a cast of actors who (apart from longtime collaborator Liv Ullmann) had never worked with the director. David Carradine is Abel Rosenberg, a Jewish-American circus performer who sinks into alcoholism and apathy after the suicide of his brother, and Ullman is Manuela, Abel’s brother's widow, who performs in a cabaret by night and a brothel by day. The plot involves a police inspector (Gert Fröbe) who suspects Abel in a series of mysterious murders, and a mad scientist performing diabolical experiments on often unwitting subjects. Bergman attempts to create a Kafka-esque sense of paranoia and an atmosphere of anguish and hopelessness that lays the foundation of the Nazi takeover later in the decade (the film ends with a failed attempt by the Nazi party to seize power), but the result is a languid, often turgid film that seems to stumble along without narrative shape—a rare misstep in the career of one of the greats of 20th-century cinema. Extras include audio commentary by actor Carradine, the new featurette "Bergman's Egg" with an appreciation by critic and author Barry Forshaw, archival featurettes, a stills gallery, and a booklet. An optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)