Sex in Chains
Sex in Chains (German: Geschlecht in Fesseln – Die Sexualnot der Strafgefangenen) is a 1928 silent film directed by William Dieterle.
Plot
The film opens with Franz Sommer (Dieterle) and his newlywed wife, Helene (Mary Johnson). They are going through hard times, and Sommer is without steady employment, partly due to his honest-to-a-fault nature. Helene takes a job selling cigars and cigarettes at a restaurant. When a patron advances on Helene and ignores Sommer's warning to leave her alone, Sommer pushes him away. He falls and hits his head, dying some days later. Sommer is arrested and sentenced three years in prison.
Sommer is kept in large cell with four other people, one of which, Steinau (Gunnar Tolnæs), is soon acquitted and promises Sommer to help his wife while he's incarcerated. This he does by giving her a better job at his business and offering her his friendship while they both work to get Sommer out.
For much of the remainder of the film, the men's sexual frustration from being separated from women is the focus, with scenes such as making nude sculptures from breadcrumbs and water and fighting for a woman's handkerchief smuggled in from visitation. At the same time, there is a strong homoerotic undercurrent throughout, though only hinted at.
Podcasts:
In Chains
by: Depeche ModeThe way you move
Has got me yearning
The way you move
Has left me burning
I know you know what you're doing to me
I know my hands will never be free
I know what it's like to be in chains
The way you move
Is meant to haunt me
The way you move
To tempt and taunt me
I know you knew on the day you were born
I know somehow I should've been warned
I know I walk every midnight to dawn in chains
In chains, I'm in chains
In chains, I'm in chains
You've got me dying for you
It's you that I'm living through
You've got me praying to you
Saying to you anything you want me to
You've got me reaching for you
My soul's beseeching me too
You've got me singing to you
Bringing to you anything you ask me to
The way you move
Is mesmerizing
The way you move
Is hypnotizing
I know I crumble when you are around
Start to mumble a bit of a false sound
Straggle, stumble, shackled and bound in chains
In chains, I'm in chains
In chains, I'm in chains
You've got me dying for you
It's you that I'm living through
You've got me praying to you
Saying to you anything you want me to
You've got me reaching for you
My soul's beseeching me too
You've got me singing to you
Bringing to you anything you ask me to
I'm in chains
In chains, I'm in chains
In chains, I'm in chains
In chains, I'm in chains