{"id":11677,"date":"2010-07-13T11:23:52","date_gmt":"2010-07-13T18:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11677"},"modified":"2022-02-21T23:08:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T06:08:34","slug":"svengali-1931","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11677","title":{"rendered":"Svengali (1931)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;You are beautiful, my manufactured love.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Svengali-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Svengali-Poster-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-47411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Svengali-Poster-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Svengali-Poster-96x128.jpg 96w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Svengali-Poster.jpg 751w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA sinister musician (John Barrymore) hypnotizes a model (Marian Marsh) into becoming his wife and a famous opera singer &#8212; but her true love (Bramwell Fletcher) refuses to give up hope that she will one day return to him.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Donald Crisp Films<\/li>\n<li>Horror Films<\/li>\n<li>John Barrymore Films<\/li>\n<li>Mind Control and Hypnosis<\/li>\n<li>Obsessive Love<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nPeary argues that &#8220;John Barrymore gave one of his finest screen performances in this unusual adaptation of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trilby_%28novel%29\">George du Maurier&#8217;s classic novel <em>Trilby<\/em><\/a>&#8221; &#8212; but I can&#8217;t quite agree. While he is indeed &#8220;menacing&#8221; and &#8220;sleazy&#8221; (not to mention &#8220;in-need-of-a-bath&#8221;), Barrymore&#8217;s performance, perhaps not surprisingly, far too often borders on hammy. Much more impressive is beautiful <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marian_Marsh\">Marian Marsh<\/a> as Trilby, the object of his obsessive desires; from the moment she appears on-screen, Marsh radiates a unique, surprisingly <em>modern<\/em> energy &#8212; making it easy to see why both Svengali and Fletcher&#8217;s &#8220;Billee&#8221; would fall so hard for her. Unfortunately, the &#8220;racy&#8221; narrative comes across today as dated and largely uninteresting, with occasional bursts of creative energy (i.e., Svengali&#8217;s initial hypnosis session with Marsh) adding some much-needed horror and thrills to the proceedings. Anton Grot&#8217;s Oscar-nominated, highly expressionistic sets are also noteworthy, though they give the film an undeniably stagy feel. As Peary notes, the &#8220;depressing ending&#8221; does indeed come as a bit of a surprise. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Marian Marsh as Trilby<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/svengali-marsh.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/svengali-marsh.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11682\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>The eerily effective hypnosis scene<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/svengali-hypnosis.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/svengali-hypnosis.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11683\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Expressionistic art direction<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/svengali-art-direction.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/svengali-art-direction.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11684\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo, though it&#8217;s worth a look simply for its historical value, and to see Marsh&#8217;s performance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0022454\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1931\/05\/01\/archives\/the-screen-a-lesson-in-golf-a-fashionable-rogue.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tcm.com\/tcmdb\/title\/1503\/svengali\/#articles-reviews?articleId=118172\">TCM Article<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;You are beautiful, my manufactured love.&#8221; Synopsis: A sinister musician (John Barrymore) hypnotizes a model (Marian Marsh) into becoming his wife and a famous opera singer &#8212; but her true love (Bramwell Fletcher) refuses to give up hope that she will one day return to him. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Donald Crisp Films Horror Films John Barrymore Films Mind Control and Hypnosis Obsessive Love Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: Peary argues that &#8220;John Barrymore gave one of his finest screen&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11677\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-responses-to-peary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11677"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81594,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11677\/revisions\/81594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}