Gold (1934)

Hans Albers is really quite good in this rarely seen sci-fi story. His character "Dr. Holk" has been working on the principle of using huge amounts of electrical current to effect some startling alchemy - and he thinks he can turn lead into gold! His efforts attract the attention of British millionaire "John Mills" (Michael Bohnen) who agrees to build a magnificent underwater generator - where, low and behold, his technique of generating 7½ millions volts and zapping the lead does exactly that! Now, this is where the plot loses it's way a little... "Mills" decides to make loads and loads of gold, concluding that it would solve world poverty (rather than just reduce the value of gold to that of, well, lead...) but "Holk" goes ahead with the plans to up-scale production, though it is evident he has a plan of his own. Most English speakers will be used to folks with foreign characters speaking our tongue with an accent to indicate their origins; it is interesting here to see both "Mills" and his daughter - who has taken a bit of a shine to our scientist - "Florence" (Brigitte Helm) speaking fluent German throughout - indeed Bohnen delivers an almost Nazi-esque speech towards the end. Speaking of the ending, it's tense and the "Metropolis" (1927) style machinery comes to life to great effect. The scale of the sets gives the science a certain degree of plausibility and coupled with a strong effort from Albers makes this must see film if you like this genre.