Giftgas (1929)
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Directors
Cast
Hans Stüwe, Lissy Arna, Alfred Abel, Fritz Kortner, Gerhard Dammann, Vera Baranowskaja, Bobby Burns
A young chemist’s dual-use discovery pits his opposition to poison gas against a factory management driven by profit.
The story
Young chemist Arnold Horn discovers that a compound can be used to produce either effective fertilizer or deadly poison gas. Though he opposes its use as a weapon, the chemical factory’s management proceeds with poison-gas production to increase the company’s share value. The conflict becomes personal when corporate chief ten Straaten makes advances toward Horn’s wife, Ellen, bringing Horn’s principles and private life into conflict with the factory’s pursuit of profit.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Arnold Horn, a young idealistic chemist, discovers a compound that can be used both to produce an effective fertilizer and to make a deadly poison gas. Against his wishes, the management of the chemical factory goes ahead with production of the poison gas in order to increase the value of the company’s shares. When corporate chief ten Straaten also makes advances toward Horn’s wife, Ellen, Horn loses his nerve and, in desperation, tries to get into the factory. Director Hansen fires at the intruder, hitting a container of the new gas, with catastrophic consequences. All the city’s inhabitants are killed. In the film’s closing vision, the dead of the First World War rise and denounce the use of poison gas.
Genres
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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