The film adapts the story of
Mephistopheles and
Doctor Faustus by revealing the costs to the main character Hendrik Höfgen as he abandons his conscience and continues to perform, ingratiating himself with the
Nazi Party to keep his job and improve his social position. Höfgen (modelled on German actor
Gustaf Gründgens) craves center stage. The first third of the film follows his career as a frustrated, passionate actor slogging it out in provincial theaters, occasionally dancing and singing and doing parts in films to gain notice. He even founds a Bolshevik theater with a friend to generate more work, in the avant-garde period of the early 1930s, before the Nazis came to power. Initially, Hendrik is more successful in his social and love life than as an actor. Both strands unite when his new wife watches him play the ultimate role, Mephisto (the devil's agent in the Faustus play), just before the Nazi party comes to power in Germany. While his wife, leading actors, and friends go into exile, or protest against the new regime, Hendrik returns to Germany lured by the promise of forgiveness for his communist theatre escapade and a desire to act in his native language. When the Nazi party offers to make him a star, he doesn't hesitate. Great roles and accolades quickly come his way, and Hendrik revels in his success. Hendrik reprises his greatest role as Mephisto and agrees to run the national theatre, working around the cultural restrictions and brutality of the Nazi government. He blithely overlooks the profound moral compromises of his situation, excusing himself by using the power of his close relationships with Nazi officials to help friends who would otherwise be targeted by the regime. The plot's bitter irony is that the protagonist's fondest dream is to become Germany's greatest actor, playing
Hamlet and Mephisto but to achieve this dream he sells his soul and realizes too late that he is not playing the role of Mephisto but that of Faustus; it is the Nazi leader with a major role in the film (modeled on
Hermann Göring) who is the real Mephisto. ==Cast==