Sydney Sweeney stars in true story of mummified bodies found on beach
Sydney Sweeney will star in a film about the true story of two German socialites who tried to flee civilisation - and what it had to do with two bodies found mummified on a beach
The strange story of a utopian dream turned nightmare, involving two German socialites attempting to escape civilisation after World War One, is set to hit the screens in Eden. This twisted tale of murder and deception concludes with an oil tycoon discovering two mummified bodies on one of the Galapagos Islands.
Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the build-up to World War Two, Jude Law will portray the eccentric Berlin doctor Freiderich Ritter, with Vanessa Kirby playing his sophisticated lover Dore Strauch. Ana de Armas will take on the role of a Baroness fascinated by the couple's tale, while Sydney Sweeney will portray Margret Wittmer, another woman entwined in this peculiar narrative.
This intriguing story, revealed in Abbott Khaler's book Eden Undone and drawn from previously unseen archives, reaches its climax during the height of the Great Depression. It's at this time that Los Angeles oil magnate George Allan Hancock and his team of Smithsonian scientists stumble upon a horrifying pair of corpses.
The island of Florena was previously known only to those who visited it to collect rare species for Western Zoos. It was for this purpose that George Hancock and other American elites initially journeyed to the South Seas, aiming to gather specimens for scientific study.
During a visit to the Galápagos, Hancock stumbled upon an unusual group of Europeans led by Freiderich Ritter and Dore Strauch. They had escaped political and economic turmoil in their homeland, hoping to establish a utopian paradise on the island. However, as Hancock and his fellow American explorers found out, this paradise had descended into chaos.
Over time, Ritter and his lover were joined by a traumatised World War One veteran with his young family, and an Austrian baroness accompanied by her two devoted lovers. This resulted in the group becoming embroiled in conflict.
In 1932, Heinz Wittmer and his wife Margret, who was pregnant, brought their teenage son to the island. Their baby, Rolf, was born in a cave on the island, and is thought to be the first person born on Floreana.
Dore and Margret regularly butted heads, leading to the Wittmers being housed in a cave previously used as a pirate hideout. They later built a proper house.
The situation took a bizarre turn in 1933 when the eccentric self-styled Baroness Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet arrived with her two lovers, Rudolf Lorenz and Robert Phillipson, along with their Ecuadorian servant Manuel Valdivieso. Trivial slights escalated into furious confrontations, with the Baroness using a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver to orchestrate physical altercations between her two lovers.
She was also known to brazenly seduce American tourists, stealing the spotlight from Ritter and Strauch, much to the bitterness of the pair who were accustomed to seeing themselves in newspapers worldwide.
Both Dore and Margret wrote contrasting accounts in their memoirs about their time by Freiderich Ritter's bedside as he died. Dore recalled a tender moment, while Margaret asserted he glared at his lover and uttered with his last breath: "I curse you with my dying breath."
The Baroness's lovers, Heinz Lorenz and Nuggerud, travelled to Santa Cruz, gathered supplies, and set sail for San Cristóbal before disappearing. Months later, in 1934, their mummified bodies were discovered on the beach of Marchena Island, far off-course from the intended route to San Cristóbal. The reason they ended up on Marchena remains a mystery.
Strauch returned to Germany following Ritter's death and died there in 1943. The Wittmers remained on Floreana and amassed a fortune years later, capitalising on the tourism surge. Their descendants still inhabit Floreana Island to this day.
Margret Wittmer stayed on the island until her passing in 2000 at the age of 96, never altering her account, taking any secrets she may have harboured to the grave. The outcome was fatal: with two exiles missing and two others dead, the survivors threw accusations of murder.
Eden, directed by Ron Howard of Arrested Development and A Beautiful Mind fame, is set to hit European cinemas on Thursday, April 3.