Dr. Erich Heller (Walter Janssen) is flying home from a business trip when he gets into a conversation with a fellow passenger, mining engineer Werner Baumann (Siegfried Schurenberg), about the future of technology and the industrial age. Believing that progress is inevitable, Heller is optimistic that in the future robots will do the dangerous and tedious work while humans are free for more intellectual pursuits. Heller owns a manufacturing company that is creating the robots to do the work deemed too dangerous for people.
Heller returns home where he is joyously greeted by his wife, Vilma (Sybille Schmitz). The two are newlyweds and Heller had been away for six months. Not long after returning home Heller is notified that things at the plant aren’t quite right. Heller goes to the plant where he is notified by Chief Engineer Wolter (Otto Wernicke) that there is something strange going on at the plant. Heller reluctantly leaves Vilma and goes to the plant where he finds that Professor Wolf (Walter Franck), the man in charge of developing his robots, has locked himself in his laboratory and refuses to let anyone know what he is doing. Heller confronts Wolf who tells him that he has created a giant robot that he will use to grab power. When Heller tries to stop Wolf, he ends up killed.
Meanwhile, Baumann goes to inspect the mine and learns from Forman Schumacher (Willi Schur) that poisonous gas is leaking into one of the tunnels. An explosion in the mine kills eight workers. Baumann begins to wonder if the use of robots in the mines would have saved the men from being killed.
While playing stick ball with some friends Baumann accidentally hits the ball, breaking a window in a rather large mansion. When he goes to the house to offer his apologies, he finds out that it is the home of Vilma, Heller’s widow. Baumann tells Vilma about his conversation with Heller and of his respect for the man and his beliefs. Baumann and Vilma strike up a friendship. As their relationship grows, Wolf continues to exert his power and persists in his plan to take over, using a giant robot, and become master of the world.
“Master of the World” AKA “Der Herr der Welt” was released in 1934 and was directed by Harry Piel. It is a German science fiction movie. It is considered the last science fiction movie produced by Germany before Hitler rose to power and basically turned everything into propaganda. This was one of the few movies that Piel made where he did not play a character in the film.
It seems that after WWI the soviets and eastern bloc countries focused more on the industrial revolution, surrounded by some propaganda, in their films while the U.S. and the western bloc countries were geared more toward mindless entertainment in their films.
Piel made three films back-to-back that were loosely referred to as Piel’s sci-fi trilogy. The films were “Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt” or “An Invisible Man Goes Through the City”, “Die Welt ohne Maske” or “The World Without a Mask” and “Der Herr der Welt” or “Master of the World”. A fourth science-fiction film, “Die grosse Wette” or “The Big Bet” was released earlier in 1916 and was a silent film.
This was actually pretty good. Although the film is a little dark there are some nice explosions and the giant robot is rather impressive.