The text in the 1909 sales catalogue goes to some trouble to produce a rational justification for why the pythons, whose skins are used to manufacture elegant leather accessories, are skinned alive. It is because the creatures would resist and so killing them would damage the skin. In a 1909 novel by German writer Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943; he is known to film historians as the writer of Der Student von Prag and Alraune) we find a description of this film, shot by shot, which edges imperceptibly into nightmarish fantasy and sexualised gore.