Media gallery for
The Serpent's Egg

Page from Bergman's shooting script.

Page from Bergman's shooting script.

Manuela (Liv Ullmann) claims that she works in an office, but Abel (David Carradine) discovers that she is working in a brothel.

Abel (David Carradine) and Manuela (Liv Ullmann). Although Bergman wasn’t happy with the result, he still regarded the film as ’a healthy learning experience.’

The Swedish critics were mostly positive. Åke Janzon in Svenska Dagbladet:’ The contrast between poverty and luxury, between the depths of depression and a hectic life of pleasure is portrayed with a tremendous power of suggestion that precludes naivety, conveying a cohesive feel of the inferno with an overall impression of sickness.

Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Peter Falk, and Richard Harris were all considered for the role of Abel Rosenberg. It was only once all four of them had declined that David Carradine was mentioned as an option.

"Are you a jew?" Manuela (Liv Ullmann), inspector Bauer (Gert Fröbe) and Abel (David Carradine) at the morgue.

Drawing of Bergmannstrasse in the shooting script.

Research material from Workbook no 33.

Professor Hans Vergérus (Heinz Bennent) is yet another one in the long line of Bergman’s authoritarian, often scientifically-informed Vergérus characters.

When Abel (David Carrdine) returns home one eventing, he discovers that his brother Max (Hans Eichler) has shot himself.

A by Bergman’s standards, unusually neat page from his shooting script.

A by Bergman’s standards, unusually neat page from his shooting script.

Manuela (Liv Ullmann) and Abel (David Carradine).