Svengali (1927)

Directed by

Gennaro Righelli

Genre

drama film, silent film

Country

Germany

Runtime

1h 44m

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A sinister musician uses hypnotic powers to control a young woman's singing career. The story focuses on his manipulation and her tragic fate.

darktensebroodingmelancholicslow-burndatedatmospheric

What happens

Svengali is a 1927 German silent drama film directed by Gennaro Righelli and starring Paul Wegener, Anita Dorris and André Mattoni. It was produced and written by Max Glass, an adaptation of the 1894 George du Maurier novel Trilby. This is one of the adaptations of the novel that shifts the focus of the story more to Svengali, since at this time anti-Semitism was on the rise in Germany, and Svengali was portrayed as an evil Jew in the film. German actress Anita Dorris appeared in very few other silent films, none of which are well known today. Italian director Righelli on the other hand directed numerous films during his career, although his main claim to fame today is that he was the grandfather of Italian horror film director Sergio Martino. Svengali was remade in 1931 as a sound film starring John Barrymore. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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