Jew Suss (1934)

Original title

Jew Süss

Directed by

Lothar Mendes

Genre

drama film, biographical film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 48m

Rating

5.7 of 10 from 7 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A 1934 British film about Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, a Jewish financier in 18th century Germany. It shows his rise and fall amidst antisemitism, aiming to condemn prejudice through historical drama.

historicaldramaticsympatheticearnestslow-pacedromanticserioussomber

What happens

Jew Süss is a 1934 British historical romantic drama film based on Lion Feuchtwanger's 1925 novel Jud Süß, about Joseph Süß Oppenheimer. Directed by Lothar Mendes, the film stars German actor Conrad Veidt in the role of Oppenheimer. The screenplay was written by Dorothy Farnum and Arthur Rawlinson. Unlike the Nazis' antisemitic propaganda film Jud Süß (1940), the British film was intended to be sympathetic to Jews, and is generally considered to be a faithful adaptation of Feuchtwanger's novel. It was hoped the historical analogy, condemning antisemitism in 1730, would be a successful means of evading the ban by the British censors on political topics in films. The latter film with the same title, produced in Nazi Germany, is considered by some to be an antisemitic response to Mendes' philosemitic film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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