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OPEN CLASSIC CINEMA · 714

Opium

1919112 minGermany
Drama

Synopsis

A European professor researching opium in China encounters a woman held under the control of a vengeful proprietor. Helping her escape draws him into a conflict that follows him home. Jealousy, addiction and imagined terrors become entangled as the proprietor seeks to make the researcher experience the drug's destructive effects himself.

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Video edition
Wikimedia Commons
Original language
No spoken dialogue. Intertitles: German.
This copy runs
96:02
Subtitles
No subtitle track in this language

No spoken dialogue. Intertitles: German. No subtitle track in this language.

Languages and subtitles

No subtitle track in this language

Wikimedia Commons · Robert Reinert · Public domain

This copy runs shorter than the reference runtime. Editing and playback speed can differ between editions.

Cast

DirectorsRobert Reinert

Historical context

The German melodrama places its fears of addiction and sexual rivalry in an exoticized image of China. Its threatening proprietor and captive heroine should be understood as conventions of that fiction, rather than a portrait of Chinese society.

Sources and availability

General references identify the work and its copy. A reference beside an editorial section is linked to the claims checked in that section.

Wikipedia — film referenceWikidata — film identity and credits

Work catalogued as public domain in the United States.

The public-domain references concern the original films in the United States. Rights can differ for other countries, editions, restorations, music or translations. Sources are listed on each film page.

Availability checked on September 12, 2026.

Photograph credit

Photographs cropped, resized and optimized as WebP, displayed in monochrome.

  • Eduard von Winterstein — Friedrich Gahlbeck; This image was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) as part of a cooperation project . The German Federal Archive guarantees an authentic representation only using the originals (negative and/or positive), resp. the digitalization of the originals as provided by the Digital Image Archive . · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
  • Werner Krauss — George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress); This image is available from the United States Library of Congress 's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ggbain.37082 . This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing . · Public domain
  • Conrad Veidt — MGM-photo by Clarence Bull.; eBay front back · Public domain

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