Conrad Veidt film recs post

[snowgrouse]

So, people have been asking me what it is about this Conrad Veidt guy. Most of you will know him as this guy:



Or this guy:



And so did I. And I knew about Different from the Others and knew that he was a great guy who fought against the Nazis until the last and... that was it, and he was one of those actors I always enjoyed if I saw him in something, because he was always solid. Until I started checking out his other stuff this summer and fell head over heels because oh my fucking god, the guy was not only stunning at physical acting, intensely emotional acting, deeply intelligent and engaging acting, but also had the sexual charisma of a neutron star, to put it mildly. The way he uses his eyes, the way he uses his hands, the way he stalks around like a panther, curses and/or seduces everything with his touch and his gaze and acts with his every single muscle, and even his shadow--I've never seen anything like it. I know my lady boner for him pierces the stratosphere, but he is many more things besides just someone I fancy: I have never, ever seen anyone with the kind of power, the kind of magnetism, the kind of physical presence he brings to the screen. I've been blown away by great Method actors, but he is something beyond that: a guy who genuinely believed he was channeling spirits from the aether and described acting as "possession." He's so much more *alive* than anyone else I've ever seen; he makes other actors look boring, makes other films seem devoid of life, now. And then there's the androgyny that's unlike anything I've ever seen: he isn't a fey, neuter figure but more like a strong woman and a strong man at the same time--never giving into false, insecure macho bluster or a simpering caricature of femininity either. When he walks into a room, he makes all the men look like boys and out-vamps all the women. His masculinity is that of the Romantic, doomed but profound, ironic hero whom he embodied on the screen like no one else; his femininity is that of the vamps and femme fatales, the leading ladies of his era. But that both could exist in the same human being?! How in the hell?

He did so many great films between Caligari and Casablanca and now that I've been gushing about him all over, people have been asking me which of his films they should check out. I thought I'd make a recs/mini-reviews masterpost, and this'll be updated with more films once I find them. Of course, don't be upset if I've slagged off one of your favourites or gushed about a film you think is lame--I don't mean to start arguments about them and everyone's got different tastes/standards anyway, so that's not what this post is about. Here's hoping this list will help in deciding what to watch, though.

Connie's filmography spans the years from silent film to Technicolor, and he originated or codified some of the most enduring character types and tropes in movie history (Looks Like Cesare! Grand Vizier Jafar! And in his American films, the Nazi Nobleman), so his career is an incredibly fascinating one to explore for historical reasons, too. And of course, he was an amazing guy, but there are plenty enough bios on the Internet for you to check out when it comes to all the Nazi-pwning human rights badass bisexual manwhore stuff he got up to. Just ignore the ones that claim him as completely gay or that he and all his wives were Jewish; some people just completely fail at research or have such a bad self-esteem they need to try and "prove" something by appropriation or by exaggeration (as if being bi and having married one Jew wasn't enough for some reason. Yeah, I don't know either). ETA: Sick of all the "biographies" that were full of mistakes and/or outright rubbish, I wrote an extensive biography of him here, so go check that out. Dude was seriously an amazing human being. And did I mention the charisma and the sex pantherness? Plus, it's really interesting to watch him transform from the cursed silent woobie into the powerful, towering panther of the talkies who does the cursing instead--or who can also play heroic officers, kind men with integrity, all these things that are far more than his seriously distorted, exaggerated "silent horror actor" reputation would suggest. He only made about half a dozen horror films but played officers more than a dozen times, FFS. He's sorely in need of a rediscovery--in all his multicoloured aspects, not just the silent German horrors all goths and film buffs know.

You can download yourself copies of pretty much all of the movies I've reviewed here on this page.



Favourites worth watching over and over again:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: 'nuff said.

Casablanca: It's *Casablanca*. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

The Student of Prague (1926 version): Beautiful, beautiful German Expressionist/Gothic Romantic horror film with some outstanding special effects for its time. Connie plays Balduin, a student and Prague's best swordsman who ends up selling his mirror image to the Devil a moneylender to get money and the woman he wants. And all hell--atmospheric, beautiful, psychologically haunting hell--breaks loose. This is Gothic Romanticism at its best, an absolute joy and a dark, visual feast to watch, from beginning to end. It's one of Connie's greatest performances, especially in his silent period--he is *the* Byronic hero made flesh, defining the very archetype on film. He broods, he loves tenderly, he fights ruthlessly, he rages beautifully, he sinks into decadence, has his heart broken, he crawls and runs and quivers in terror... oh, he does everything. And he looks ethereally beautiful all throughout, pale and lean, his eyes blazing with damnation and love and despair. The scenes where he confronts his mirror image/doppelgänger are particularly powerful and mesmerising--basically, in the German silents, the only person who could out-creep Conrad Veidt was Conrad Veidt. His mirror image appears young, still angelically beautiful, while Balduin himself looks two decades older and haggard from a life of debaucheries--yet none of it is makeup; it's just his performance. This is one of *the* reasons why I fell for him so hard; I was completely blown away, and utterly stunned I'd never heard of this film before, considering how good it is. This film is so ridiculously underappreciated and obscure that it deserves to be restored to its rightful place with all the other German Expressionist classics, like Caligari and Nosferatu.

A Woman's Face (1941 version): AWESOME FILM. A bitter, scarred, female gangster meets both a charming, devilish playboy and a plastic surgeon, both of whom offer her their own versions of a life more interesting, more fulfilling than the one she's known. Scriptwriting--notwithstanding the OOC last five minutes tacked on to get it past the censors--doesn't get better than this. Every line has wit and sharpness; the direction and the performances are excellent from the leads to the tiniest bit-parts. Joan Crawford is absolutely breathtaking and so is Connie, and the layers in both their characters just get better and better on subsequent viewings. Cukor's direction is flawless. The use of musical cues, shadows, lighting, the angles, just everything is glorious. The gender roles of the embittered gangster and the femme fatale are flipped deliciously--Joanie plays the gangster and Connie the homme fatal, and *how!* The way they both use their body language is incredibly powerful. She does the full range from locked-up PTSD to tough, butch swagger to tender girlishness and a seductive woman knowing her power, and he has never been as silkily devilish, as utterly evil and seductive as when he plays Torsten Barring, lounging upon pianos and purring like a cat, looming in the shadows with the seething gall "of Lucifer cast out of heaven" (as he himself put it). Acting-wise, it's his greatest performance as far as I'm concerned--partially because they never made/let him do anything this subtle and as quietly, softly menacing in his other films--stripped of excess melodrama (compared to his silents), his acting never gets more honed than this. And it makes Torsten's evilness all the more powerful--watch the way he uses his hands to manipulate through touch and music, listen how softly he speaks and how Joan's Anna is drawn to him as if iron filings to a magnet. "Lucifer in a tuxedo" indeed. The attic scene alone should've bagged him an Oscar--it's honestly some of the greatest evil/insane acting I've ever seen and the way he uses his voice, the way he uses his body is just pitch-perfect. It was his own favourite performance, too.

Anna is such a strong, unstereotypical female character that she keeps haunting me--she is an outsider, someone who's been bullied all her life--and they actually *show us* how she's turned into such a bitter person, through all the scenes where she is judged by men and women because of her scarred face and also because she isn't how a woman should be. And in 1941, that was just... *not done* if you were a woman; conservative matron critics were shocked that the Hays Office could even let a film with such a "monstrous" female character be released. Even when she's torn between two equally manipulative men, Anna is never a doormat or a victim, but a tough bitch who makes her own choices for right or for wrong. It's her toughness and cynicism which makes Torsten's sexual magnetism even more breathtaking. If a HBIC of her calibre--someone who clearly shows us at the start of the film that she doesn't give a damn about slippery, handsome douchebags, and can see right through Torsten's charm--*still* falls for the guy, that means the guy must be truly exceptional. And you could hardly find a male star in that era with the erotic magnetism Connie possessed, so they definitely got the casting spot on--and Joan's acting, the way she reacts to Connie's eyes and voice and touch is half of what makes him so irresistible. Like with any good erotica, it isn't necessarily the touch or the look itself that's the most erotic thing, but the recipient's *response* is the most erotic thing of all--we get to feel what she feels. And oh, how she responds--Anna pretty much sinks into subspace whenever Torsten is near (seriously). It's genuinely one of the most erotic, most psychologically BDSMy movies I have ever seen, and I must say that in my thirtysomething years of RL pervery and a lifelong passion for hot villains, I have *never* seen a man use sexual power the way Connie does in this film. Just... never.

And Anna, oh, Anna. You don't get many female characters this strong and complex today, with such huge character scope where they can be both strong and vulnerable at the same time. Which makes the ending of the film even more ridiculous, sad to say. The ending feels pasted on and utterly unconvincing in that it's utterly out of character for Anna (it's exactly the sort of thing they had to end a movie with in those days to please the censors--"normalcy must be restored") and basically, Dr. Segert can go stuff himself. But up until the last five minutes or so, you get pretty much perfect cinema. I can't stop thinking about it (just have a look at my LJ tag for it for all the deep analysis and the helpless screams. You absolutely must see this if you haven't yet. It's a fantastic film.

Thief of Bagdad: Absolutely glorious, hugely entertaining and fun British Technicolor adventure. Connie steals the show, of course, slinking around in his silken robes as if in slow motion while everyone else moves at normal speed, menacing everyone even with his *shadow*. Michael Powell, who directed Connie's scenes, was a huge fanboy of his to begin with, and it shows. He utilises Connie's stunning eyes perfectly--the first character closeup we get in the movie is of his eyes only, the rest of his face hidden by the collar of his blood-red turban, one of the most majestic entrances given to an actor in any film ever. We get more marvellous closeups of those piercing eyes as Jaffar curses Ahmad and Abu, but even more striking and effective is the way he first opens them but then casts them down in heartbreak and shame when he can't bring himself to hypnotise his beloved Princess. (Eyes and sight are a big deal in the movie, as are all kinds of Freudian symbols, and I've written a lengthier analysis of them here). And then there's the snark, oh, the glorious snark--the scenes with Jaffar and the Sultan especially are full of delicious, juicy banter. It really isn't a surprise Jaffar ended up influencing so, so many fantasy villains that came after; he has everything. Jaffar is the perfect anti-villain--he has both the swishiness and the outrageousness and the utter command of the classic melodramatic baddie, but he is also heartbreakingly sympathetic when he trembles whenever he's near the Princess and can't even bring himself to touch her. Even at the end, when he's trying to manipulate her, his voice may issue a command but his eyes will be forlorn and he will be wibbling. It's gorgeous. The fact that they made/let him play those bits as someone incredibly vulnerable really helped make Jaffar even more enthralling. (In fact, he's so sympathetic I've even written a lengthy ramble on why Jaffar might actually have been a better option for the Princess because he's actually less of a patriarchal guy than Ahmad.) I have no idea why Jaffar isn't idolised *right* up there with Jareth, the Phantom, Loki and all those other dark lovers in fanfic/fandom, because he really should be. You can't really go wrong with this movie. Majestic.

The Spy In Black: Wonderful, intellectually satisfying, witty spy drama, but you can't go wrong with Powell and Pressburger. Depressing at the end, but a finely crafted film, and the Veidt/Hobson chemistry is great. Connie gets to play a sympathetic, yet dangerous character with steely determination, honour, humour and a touch of romance. It's one of those few instances when he got to play a well-rounded part. Oh yeah, and this film made a seventeen-year-old Christopher Lee develop an obsessive mancrush on him that lasted until the end of his life--he always cited Veidt as his favourite actor of all time and said that whenever he had to project charisma and glide around menacingly, he would try to emulate Veidt.

Contraband: Even more enjoyable than The Spy in Black, and made by the same team. It's all about the Veidt/Hobson chemistry this time, with more humour than its predecessor, and some great and witty and suspenseful action. Wonderful atmosphere, lots of great comedy (Hay Petrie is also adorable). Thanks to Pressburger, Connie gets another rare chance to play a well-rounded role that was tailor-made for him (Connie also co-produced the film)--and that of a good guy, this time. He gets to thump Nazis! And this one's also got some rather risqué elements sprinkled here and there, which makes the last shots of the film disappointingly chaste in comparison. I mean, there are *bondage jokes* all over the place, during the cellar scene in particular. "Good girl. I shall hurt you." "Go ahead." *Really.* And when it's Pressburger, you know it's intentional. Oh yeah, and Andersen fondles a lady's silk stockings at the start. Entertaining and fun.

The Hands of Orlac: Like a damn ballet. If one had been written by Freud. Connie plays a pianist who loses his hands in an accident and it seems they've grafted the hands of a murderer onto him. And it's as if the hands start to control him, drawn to murder against Orlac's will. This is a brilliant Expressionist nightmare (again directed by Robert "Caligari" Wiene), slow-moving but hypnotic--but you really do have to watch it as a ballet or as a modern dance performance to get the most out of it. This is one of those films that you just won't get if you can't get Expressionism, and its emphasis on slow movements and exaggerated emotional states. For those of us who lap Expressionism up, it's dreamlike and spellbinding, and Connie's performance is magnetic--he controls the entire movie with carefully, precisely calculated bodily movements. He twists and turns and judders and shakes and convulses and above all, uses those magnificent, expressive, beautiful hands of his for maximum impact. Hand porn just doesn't get better than this; Expressionism doesn't get more physically tense than this. It's one of *the* great Connie performances; one of his best silent parts, hands (ahem) down. Make sure you watch the Kino release before the one they later released on Blu-Ray: despite HD goodness, the later release is shorter and the plot seems choppier. The longer Kino release is where it's at.

Eerie Tales: Fantastic and engaging, light-hearted horror anthology film with some great, juicy material. Connie, Reinhold Schünzel and Anita Berber run wild! Creepy tales from Poe, Stevenson et al, told with relish and glee--it's all great fun. Excellent stuff for horror fans; put this on on Halloween and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

The Man Who Laughs: Classic tale of a circus freak with a heart of gold. Connie does more acting with his eyes than many other actors do with their entire bodies. And he had to: his entire face was frozen into a permanent grin by huge dentures and wires and he was in agony all throughout the shoot, but still came through with a brilliant performance. It's utterly heartbreaking and beautiful. If you only think of the Joker when you see a picture of Gwynplaine, you absolutely must watch this. Gwynplaine's not a villain at all and a broken, lost boy under that surgically grafted smile. It's good stuff--but remembered for all the wrong reasons, as it's more of a Romantic historical melodrama than a horror movie. Watch it for yourself and see what it's actually about.

Different From The Others: Dude, it's the first pro-LGBT rights movie in history. It was way ahead of its time in 1919 in preaching tolerance for LGBT people and also, very importantly, supported Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's idea that sexual orientation and gender covered a wide spectrum. Hirschfeld himself appears as a doctor in the movie, educating people about sexuality. I find some of its content to be ahead of its time even today when people are under crazy pressure to pick orientations and labels and when even LGBT people can be breathtakingly sexist and essentialist about what kind of stuff goes with which gender. For instance, even as the movie presents us with images of "virile women," it hastens to add that not all lesbians are masculine, and that not all gay men are effeminate--yet these are stereotypes both the mass media and many LGBT people themselves still believe in in the 2010s! Basically, this stuff should be shown in schools *today*; it's that good. The story itself is heartbreaking--a gay violinist gets blackmailed for his sexuality and all goes to hell. The scenes with m/m tenderness are tastefully done--they really made a point of proving there's nothing depraved or perverse about homosexuality. By the end of the movie, I'm usually in tears because we still have such a long way to go, yet these people in 1919 already had so much understanding and compassion and intelligence about these things. It's also worth pointing out many of the actors were queer themselves--Connie and Anita Berber were both bisexual, Dr. Hirschfeld was gay and the young violin student guy was his boyfriend at the time. They and Oswald were incredibly brave to make this movie at the time--they got death threats even as it was being filmed, and the far right tried to break up screenings of the movie, spreading propaganda and rioting outside the theatres. In Vienna, someone fired shots into the audience. Some early Nazis even released gas and live rodents into theatres showing this film, and later all copies of the film were burned. It was also one of the reasons why Connie was denounced as a traitor to the Fatherland--there were genuinely papers at the time in which he was described as a corrupting influence to Germany's youth because he made women lusty and immoral and turned young men gay, which is why after ol' Adolf came to power, they banned all of Connie's films from being shown in Germany. Yeah. It's a miracle that we even have the 50 minutes they used for the reconstruction that's currently available for viewing. (On a more shallow note, Connie suffers beautifully and sprawls around in a silk dressing gown.) All in all, essential viewing for everybody, really.

The Passing of the Third Floor Back: A mysterious, kind and gentle stranger arrives at a London boarding house filled with some very flawed human beings (some of whose humanity is debatable). Little by little, his benevolent influence starts to bring some light and hope into their lives. Basically, Connie plays not a devil for once, but an angel. No, an actual real angel. Or a saint. Or quite possibly Jesus. It's left deliberately vague. And he is fantastic. There are points in the film that can get a tad too melodramatic at times, but Connie's performance blows it out of the water. There are good articles on the film here and here that do it more justice than I ever could. All I can say is that Connie is magical, the soul of a film that would never have achieved its spiritual impact had he not brought into it his own, bright spirit--and even saying that is not enough, because you really do have to see it for yourself. He radiates beauty, strength and goodness, and *not* in a saccharine way, but a very deep, profound, Old Testament angel sort of way. I like how the boarders' bitterness and the cruel, brutal moments of realism balance out The Stranger's unearthly goodness, and the little maid Stasia's character is a good mixture of both hope and despair, in a truly profound and memorable, genuinely moving performance from Renee Ray. I do think that they achieved a good balance there, so that the film never becomes *too* naive and preachy in its message of hope and integrity even amidst human nastiness. Connie's Stranger is so many things: awe-inspiring, breathtaking, frightening, comforting, tear-jerking... even surprisingly sensual at times. The movie has its flaws, but it's one of those that will come back to haunt you--if only for his performance alone. Essential Connie viewing so that you can see he excelled at angels as well as at the damned creatures he's more famous for.

The Wandering Jew: I prefer this to Jew Süss writing/direction-wise, although there's some awful, typical early 1930s British overacting all over the place still. Connie's performance is riveting, though--I would definitely recommend it for the sheer spiritual power inherent in his acting as Matathias grows from an arrogant, selfish bastard into a saintly, radiant, formidable figure. It's one of those hugely varied, complex roles any actor worth his salt dreams of--Matathias gets to be so many things, go through several different phases and his personality changes so thoroughly it's deeply engaging to watch. Connie looked upon this performance of his as one of his all-time favourites. And again, the badassness of the fact that he chose to play a positive Jewish character, at a time when he got death threats for it from the Nazis, cannot be overemphasised. This is a truly beautiful and magical performance, and essential Connie viewing--his performance in this one, like Orlac, always puts me through the wringer because it's so intense in its physicality and its emotion; he can make you feel his tension, his grief and his ecstasies in your own body. Note that more than one cut of this movie exists, so I recommend you watch the short one first and the longer one after that (I've denoted both clearly on the masterpost).

Der Kongress Tanzt/The Congress Dances: Absolutely delightful musical comedy fluff with perfect comic timing, bounciness, lots of laugh-out-loud moments (with some very naughty humour for the time) and just great fun all over the place. The adorable Lilian Harvey plays a shopgirl, whose hilarious adventures end up with her romancing the Tsar, if only for one day. And what a day! Connie has a minor role as the charming, manipulative Metternich, but he sparkles whenever he's on screen and leers all throughout. Funny how the history books at school never told me Metternich was such a sexy beast, but I'm not complaining. Bring the smelling salts!

Ich und die Kaiserin:Almost a sequel to Kongress, but even better! Lilian plays another underling who gets entangled in the romances and adventures of the French courtiers, being so sparkly and hilarious that I just want to hug her until she squeaks. This comes with *way* more Connie, in a delightfully unusual role--being an adorable, swishy dork: he's a pampered marquis who bonks his head when falling off a horse and isn't quite sure who the love of his life is. Perfect, bouncy, silly entertainment. I don't even like musicals all that much, but these two were like the most finely-crafted, satisfying West End spectacles that make even cynical old bastards like me smile just because they're so enjoyable. So frothy, so ridiculous, so lovely--one of my favourite rainy day movies of all time.

All Through The Night: Lovely, silly fluff with a gruff and loveable Bogie and a silky and funny Connie, with bonus Peter Lorre and Judith Anderson, and a whole bunch of other solid character actors. It's the best kind of popcorn film. Seriously, it's gangsters vs. Nazis, and the gangsters are led by Bogie, and the Nazis are led by Connie. How the hell can you go wrong with that? You can't. The only people who slam it seem to have been sold it as some hard-hitting noir, but it's not that sort of thing at all--just a whole load of action comedy fun. Good stuff for a cosy night in with some wine and nibbles.

Der Schwarze Husar: Fun historical adventure fare. Connie is as flirty and as saucy and as handsome as can be as a bold hussar of the Napoleonic era, on a mission to protect a feisty princess who's something of an adventuress of her own. He gets to brood and prowl in a tight, tight black uniform (Christ, it's the tightest outfit he wore since Cesare!) and be all rakish and snarky and gorgeous and, just, unf. This is one of those early 30s Veidt films that causes explosive bursts of horny raging from all of us sexually frustrated fangirls, simply because he is so outrageously hypersexual and saucy that you will never have seen the like. Frothy, fluffy swashbuckling fun and ridiculously sexy pantherness. Good stuff!

Die Brüder Schellenberg: Great film. Connie gives another solid double performance as two brothers, one a ruthless rich bastard and the other a kind humanitarian, and Lil Dagover is sizzlingly hot. In fact, she's so hot she manages to out-tart Connie(!), which isn't easy. The direction on this is excellent and the acting isn't as overblown as in many other silents. It's a good story, well worth watching. Shame the quality of the surviving print isn't great, but it's an engaging movie.

Ingmarsarvet: Oh, wow. Absolutely spellbinding gem of silent Swedish cinema, full of nature spirits, ecstatic religiosity, miracles, tragedy, doomed love and a crazy, charismatic preacher played to the hilt by Connie. This is a magnificent, hypnotic film. The movie, set in the Swedish countryside in the 1800s and based on a true story, consists of two intervowen tales: one of a young man, Ingmar, who's lost his inheritance and his ancestral home and of his struggles to get it back, and of the people in the little village coming under the spell of a charismatic preacher, Helgum. I expected the film to be depressing what with a) Nordicness (we're always miserable up here) and b) the preacher stuff and religious crazy, but it was actually the good sort of ecstatic religious crazy. And then there were random nature spirits popping up all over the place, so you got this very... dreamlike feel to it, and it gives us a good glimpse into how people may, indeed, have been experiencing the world in the olden days. And that sort of mystical/magical realism stuff is right up my street, so I loved it. Of course, Connie steals the film in his all-too-few scenes, but all the rest of it is lovely, too. It really is a magical film; silent cinema at its best.

The Chess Player: Entertaining French adventure movie about Catherine the Great scheming away and the heroes trying to outwit her. Connie plays an eccentric, wizardlike figure who builds clockwork robots (how can even *that* be a type to cast him into?!?) and is almost a doll himself, in that he has lost his heart to his long-dead lady love. And for once, Connie seems convincingly celibate, even asexual! His Kempelen is a touching and unusual character for him, and it's an intriguing and well-paced movie with plenty of juicy fun and adventure. Whovians would probably like it; it's that kind of fantasy-ish adventure thing, complete with a grumpy yet benevolent wizardly figure helping out a bunch of youngsters. Good stuff!

Die Letzte Kompagnie: Only a very ropey copies of this exist, but it's better than nothing. A Prussian company of 13 men, led by Connie's Captain Burk, has to undertake a suicide mission to defend a strategic river crossing long enough for their comrades to evade the Napoleonic army. They take over the mill by the river and one by one, we get to explore the different characters of the men involved--in all their hopes and their terrors, their sorrows and their joys--but we know they're all doomed. Burk has the responsibility of keeping up morale, of keeping everyone together--and he, too, starts to crack, although his bravery does last until the bitter end. This is a significant film in the Veidt oeuvre because it was the first major heroic role he played, and his first successful talkie. This film truly reinvented him for the screen, showing he could play bold, solid, heroic characters instead of the demons, outcasts and madmen he specialised in before. This begun a short, but notable string of heroic officer roles for him in the German talkies, cut short by Hitler's ascent. Absolutely worth it for Connie's acting--another one of those that you have to see if your image of Veidt is only the flaily silent "horror actor".

Die Andere Seite: This one is all about the angst, and about masculinity falling apart in the WWI trenches. Some interesting, moody stuff going on here, with Connie getting to do some more realistic acting. It's a balanced mix of despair, booze, broken emotion and touches of awkward tenderness between men torn by the horrors of war. And as such, not a particularly cheering movie, but worth it for the acting. Oh yeah, and the homoromantic stuff that's... not even subtext because it really is there in broken caresses, gasps and pleas and tears and it's hard to watch because you know the guys aren't going to make it. It's well-directed and acted and much more realistic than many other movies from this period. Really, there should just be this big box set of cleaned-up, restored, engsubbed versions of Connie's early German talkies to showcase the variety of roles he got to play during this all-too-brief period. He gets decent, interesting characters to play and they aren't decadent demons but swashbuckling heroes or broken antiheroes or incredibly tragic, solemn guys and just... gah. He really gets to do some of his best acting in these ones, while the Brit films of the time were still painfully stilted. *sigh* But yeah, this one is another essential piece in the Veidt canon if you want to see how wide his skill and range really were.

Der Mann, der den Mord beging: In a rare heroic role, Connie shines and gets to be tender, chivalrous and quiet. The year is 1912. Connie plays Marquis de Sévigné, a French officer sent to Istanbul who soon sets out to investigate dodgy goings-on among the foreign attachés. There, he meets a bloated, arrogant British lord who abuses his wife, Mary, and their child, and is just a disgusting inhuman monster in general. The kind-hearted, honourable Marquis feels sympathy for Mary and falls in (unrequited and chaste!) love with her, and starts trailing the lord to get enough proof for her to divorce the bastard and to save the son from being beaten to death. Eventually, things get out of hand and drastic measures must be taken. Connie's performance is one of his best: there's no silent movie demonic staring or flailing or over-the-top sexuality here. He is understated and quiet, and his eyes and his voice are full of wistful melancholy. And he gets to tell a woman he loves her! (Also, on a more shallow note, there's some excellent smoking porn that's sizzling even by his standards.) The pacing is slow, but it's very much deliberate, to drive home the suffocating atmosphere of anxiety and social constraints of the upper classes during the period. It's a gruelling watch, not one that's particularly enjoyable because it succeeds at the anguish so well--but worth it for his performance. If someone you know thinks all Connie can do is demonic staring and flailing, this will prove them wrong.

***

Flawed, but absolutely worth it for him:

Dark Journey: Seriously flawed but Connie's at his hottest, so I hesitate to put this in this category. But man, the Veidt Eyefucking (TM) is off the scale in this one. He's absolutely scorching and gorgeous and romantic and funny and hot in this one, and he and Vivien Leigh just *glow*. They are just unbelievably beautiful--if you want a definition of classic movie glamour, take a look at these two together. The playboy scenes were written specifically with Connie in mind, and it shows--he just radiates knock-your-socks-off charm. You might want to wear asbestos underpants for this one; *no one* sexualises everything as much as he does, and he has the audacity to even get away with it, the gorgeous bastard. Nevertheless, the plot is confusing, the characters' motivations aren't really convincing, and the end peters out with an overlong, badly paced, boring sea battle and goes out with a whimper. That's why the film is so incredibly frustrating--the actors are good and there are some great lines in the script and it's full of potential, but the story and the characterisations are ultimately disappointing. I hear a lot of it ended up on the cutting room floor, including an ending where he was supposed to die in her arms, and it sounds like executive meddling was to blame for the messy end result. Even Connie and Vivien didn't know WTF their motivations were supposed to be, and Connie didn't hesitate to express his disappointment afterwards. The good parts are worth watching over and over and over again, though. And did I mention the eyefucking?

Jew Süss: Clunky, anvilly dialogue from hell, poor direction, overacted to buggery, but Connie's performance is explosive in the last third. Painful to watch not just because of the clunkiness and the overacting but also because of the rapeyness. Funnily enough, most of the anti-Semitic angst is so overblown and cartoony that it isn't actually as painful, except at the very end. And the most heartbreaking thing, of course, is that Connie very nearly got killed by the Nazis because he desperately wanted to make this film. The only problem is that Süss is such an unpleasant, greedy, ruthless, heartless character that some actually thought the movie was anti-Semitic. Dude, he lets his boss rape his girlfriend because it's good for his career! The book itself just seems like a bratty, bitchy rant by a guy who's pissed off he isn't allowed all the excess privileges other guys have because he's Jewish--it's a creepy power fantasy of just how much he wants money, pussy and power and to abuse the world for his own ends. But waah, *stomps foot* racism prevents him from fulfilling all his arsehole fantasies and it's so unfaaair!!!11 Er...? And this is an argument against him being oppressed... how? Süss is *such* a dickhead it was easy for Nazis to run with this novel and use it as "proof" of how bad Jews were because it's there in the book itself--hardly a positive portrayal of a Jewish guy. It's hard to feel any sympathy for him until the very end, by which time it's too late--Connie's acting does help somewhat, though. It's not a great film, IMHO, but it's worth checking out for historical reasons and for what Connie was willing to risk his life for. Fuck knows why they chose such a dickhole of a character, though.

The Men In Her Life: Connie plays a strict and possessive, yet kind-hearted ballet teacher. With a cane. And we go from there. Worth it for the cane porn and bath porn/lols and the heartbreak Connie delivers in the first half hour; the rest is mediocre romance novel fare, and Loretta Young's posing can get a bit grating. It's nevertheless beautiful fluff with some excellent music and epic, epic costume and hair porn. It's not atrocious, just very run-of-the-mill romance. Ok for heavy users of such.

Nazi Agent: Great double role for Connie, although not that exciting or well-written. But again, Connie's acting is splendid and makes it worth it. Just as with Different From the Others, the reality subtext of the film--about a German guy who sacrifices everything in order to bring down Nazi collaborators--is something that makes it even more poignant. It will break your heart into a thousand pieces and will make you wish you were a budgie.

Escape: One of the most appallingly written and badly acted big-budget Old Hollywood movies I've ever seen. Every line is so awful it's mindboggling. Hello, let's explain our motivations and tell, not show what we're thinking and doing! And if the hero is a dick, and not a cool and interesting dick at that (he was even more of a dick in the book), and if you find yourself cheering for Connie's Nazi general and Bonita Granville's evil schoolgirl, Ursula, and just want them to go off and be evilsexy together, it's not a good propaganda movie, now is it? The script is absolutely abysmal, so you're better off fast forwarding this one just for the Connie and Bunny bits. Connie and Bunny are the only actors in this film who actually bother to act; Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor *try*, but most of the time they just seem apathetic--AFAIK, they took on the roles just to help the war effort. Aaand Connie plays a cartoon Nazi Nobleman (TM). No, really. Monocle, check. Survival of the fittest blather, check. Jackbooted uniform for two thirds of the movie, check. Playing Wagner on a piano, check. Talking casually about concentration camps, check. Sadistic towards his girlfriend, check. To be fair, this was a very early example of what'd soon become clichéd, but still. At least he gets to put in some beautifully honed evil acting and show off with some epic monocle and uniform and cigarette porn. And then there's the Connie-in-full-sex-panther-mode-prowling-around-a-girls'-school stuff, which is deeply wrong on so many levels and yet disturbingly hot--actually, Bunny has more chemistry with him than Norma does! Connie made this movie because he thought it was good propaganda against the Nazis (he even donated half his salary to the British war effort and the other half to the Red Cross), but he failed because a) it was shite and b) he was brain-breakingly hot in it (and this is not just me; female moviegoers wailed about this in movie magazines at the time and sent him enamoured fan mail). Even his voice--thanks to some magnificent voice coaching at MGM--is liquid sex here. But other than for his and Bunny's bits, and watching the so-deeply-closeted-he-was-in-Narnia Robert Taylor wibbling in Connie's actual-bisexual-god presence, it's not particularly entertaining. Essential Connie viewing just for his acting and sexiness, though. And bonus Bunny being an evil little shit of a child-woman, something she excelled at.

Rasputin, Dämon der Frauen: Not that much actually happens in this movie--there's Rasputin, and Rasputin drinks and womanises a lot and gains too much power, and we all know what happens then. But Connie's performance is breathtaking, especially during Rasputin's famously long assassination. It's hard to think of casting more perfect than this--"Hey, we need a guy with pale blue, creepy-as-fuck hypnotic eyes, huge charisma, an aura of voracious, uninhibited sexuality and a touch of madness. Who should we cast? Hmm." Connie's body language is again impressive, as he butches up to become a gruff peasant preacher, lumbering around in bearlike fashion. He even smokes in a butch and non-sexual manner at times, which was impressive, considering... well, if you've seen a few of his movies, you know what I mean about how he usually looks like when smoking; I've seen pornos with less oral sex. So it's interesting to see him with a lot of his androgyny stripped away, although that lovely softness is still present in his voice. Also, there's some fantastic hand porn as he seduces his way through St. Petersburg. But it's in his death scene that he really shines, using his eyes and his expressive face for maximum impact. The way he screams "Felix!" accusingly at his murderer as he's shot is absolutely blood-curdling. It's not a stylised movie scream. It's the scream of a dying man, so frighteningly real it's the stuff of nightmares. To think that this acting came from a man who had seen action in WWI and would've heard men scream as they were torn to pieces and dying, and just... fucking hell. That's the kind of cry we are talking about. So, yes. The movie may not be all that great or interesting--it almost feels like a documentary of sorts, more like one of those cheap dramatisations they do in historical documentaries than a dynamic drama--but it's worth it for Connie's acting.

Bella Donna: I was actually positively surprised by this film, because I'd heard so many bad things about it. It's not nearly as bad as its reputation would suggest. In fact, it's a whole lot less frustrating and annoying than most movies in this category, or many other 1930s British films in general. The music is haunting at times and the photography has some nice touches, and some of the sets are quite believable. The acting isn't nearly as stilted and the actors don't overenunciate their lines as painfully as in, say, The Wandering Jew or god forbid, William Tell. The voluptuous Mary Ellis plays a femme fatale who, unsatisfied with her wet and bland British husband (whom she only married for his money anyway), travels with him to Egypt and falls in love with Mahmoud Baroudi, an Arab Douchebag (TM) played by Connie. So, yeah, it's one of *those* white girl/sexually-satisfying-yet-evil Eastern Man (TM) kinds of things. And thus racefaily, and oh god, the brownface they put on Connie is applied so badly and inconsistently that he seems to go from his normal skin colour to dark brown within minutes and back again. Some of the dialogue is horrible ("You don't understand the men of the East!"), but compared to other films from that period, it's more watchable than many. Yeah, even with the winceworthy racism. Part of the watchability is due to the actors--Mary Ellis is *very* sexy and alive in her part, and radiates a carnal sensuality. I really liked her and found her a competent actress, and her character was quite sympathetic. Maybe the reviewers were all straight men or something, but I could totally understand a woman who was sexually frustrated by the mores of her era and not being able to live her sensuality and her dreams out as fully as she'd like--she thinks she can find these things in Baroudi, and projects all her exotic/erotic dreams on him, with disastrous consequences. She is a dreamer who wants romance and some hot sex and adventure--who can blame her for being human and wanting to live her life to the fullest? Especially when society stifles her sexuality and her dreams and tries to chain her? Even if she is, of course, reaching for something she can never have and makes dreadful mistakes in trying to make those dreams come true. It does not go down well as Baroudi's a douchebag (because yay, patriarchy--of course the only guy who's good in bed is an egotistical bastard with a bazillion chicks orbiting around his dick), and she resorts to desperate measures and it's all quite tragic. (Later, I was to find out this is a common theme in Hichens's books--people reaching out for something new and wonderful, something that only exists in their dreams, only to come out of it melancholy, if not always disappointed.)

HOWEVER, Connie is made of porn. Ok, so he always is, but... holy crap. It's yet another instance where he's so hypnotic and roiling with such erotic charisma you can totally believe he's *so good in bed you could kill for him.* Yeah. One of those films in which Someone Is Driven To Murder Thanks To Evil Veidt Dick (no, really, that was an actual type they cast him into). Make no mistake about it, this is one of the ones where he is at his hottest--the way he caresses and tugs at her hair in all the love scenes they share, the way he constantly leers at her, the way he rocks his hips, all the *bazillion* hypersexual "hmm" noises he makes... gah! It's right up there with stuff like Dark Journey when it comes to his juggernaut charm. It's actually a bit disturbing, because he moves the way people normally only do when they're naked and horizontal, but he does it standing up and clothed, and I'm not joking--the noises and the movements he makes are so overwhelmingly sexual it's unsettling. So it's worth it for his hotness alone. Watch it as a BDSM porno and you'll get the most out of it. And then read the Hichens novel, which is way better. He was a great writer who wasn't nearly as racist as the movies they made of his films, who was sympathetic to the cultures he wrote about and who truly understood women astonishingly well. But as his novels took place very much *inside* the protagonists' minds, concerned with what they thought and felt and their emotional journeys, they were all too philosophical to be turned into good films. But at least this middling film got me into a great author and got me some hot, kinky Veidt and Ellis fap material for years, so who am I to complain?

***

Ok/harmless:

F.P.1: Worth it for the sex panther material at the start, some interest for sci-fi fans, but otherwise not special, and has another one of those frustrating endings they often gave to Veidt. Also, his accent is RIDICULOUS and he is very swishy and OTT, like the director couldn't really keep him in check. I honestly am convinced he was on drugs, because he is so hyper in his early scenes--even if it does fit the character. It'd also explain That Fucking Lighthouse Single We Do Not Talk About--that he really was so fucking high he just didn't give a fuck. In those early scenes, he basically acts from the crotch, to the point where it's a bit too much and slips from just "seductive" into "full-on flaming camp". Not that the camp isn't entertaining, of course. And Casablanca viewers think *Strasser* is camp, dear Lord! I don't think Connie could ever really completely hide his incredible, roiling sexual energy (and that's what makes him so attractive, IMHO), but the sexpanthering really does get out of hand in this one. So watch this only to see Connie at his most outrageously ridiculous, off his panther tits on stims.

Der Reigen: Ok, standard Weimar story of a fallen girl. Connie at his silent-era wasted, demonic degenerate best. And Asta Nielsen is always worth it. But not particularly memorable.

Lucrezia Borgia: Connie as Cesare Borgia! Nice historical spectacle with some fantastic set design and scale. Not bad. Passes the time, even if it can get a bit too slow at times, even for silent German standards.

Carlos and Elisabeth: Lovely historical drama and Connie is exceedingly pretty. Pretty much similar to Lucrezia Borgia in style. Enjoyable, if a bit slow and long.

Das Wachsfigurenkabinett: Well, Ivan The Terrible's bits at least are full of menace and madness. I'm just not going to sit through that bloated Nazi buffoon Jannings's bits ever again if I can help it; he always turns my stomach and knowing he was a horrible creep IRL doesn't help. If you have trigger issues about bullies, skip past that crap--it truly is bad. Fast forward to Connie's section for some silent Expressionist gold. Otherwise, IMO it's overrated simply because it's a German Expressionist Horror Film (TM). If you don't care for adolescent boyish "wouldn't it be great if I were a tyrannical arsehole and got to fuck people over for lols?!" kinds of power fantasies, it's just off-putting.

The Last Performance: One of Universal's last silent horrors. Connie plays Erik the Great, a tormented stage magician/hypnotist who falls in love with his pretty assistant. Of course, this being Connie, the love is unrequited and it all ends in tragedy. He's beautiful, yet I find this painful to watch and incredibly depressing. Not a bad film, though. As an aside, there's some serious slashiness going on with Erik's male assistant, Buffo (Leslie Fenton), who seems to have an unrequited crush on Erik. And later on I read there were some serious Veidt/Fenton affair rumours (*and* Veidt/Fenton/Gary Cooper rumours) going on IRL at the time they were filming this... oh boy.

King of the Damned: Connie plays a rebel with a heart of gold who starts a workers' revolt at a brutal prison colony in the tropics. Pretty harmless but also quite forgettable. If it weren't for all those shirtless scenes, that is... God bless the men in prison genre and all who toil sweatily in it.

Above Suspicion: Sadly, this mediocre adventure comedy was to be Connie's last film. The movie struggles a bit and Joan Crawford doesn't convince as a nice girl. How something with her, Connie and Basil motherfucking Rathbone in could be boring is kind of amazing, but those three also make it worth watching. And Connie gets to do some hilarious stuff and at least he's playing a nice guy for once. Hassert has to be THE dream husband candidate of all of his characters. Give him his own movie, dammit!

Rome Express: Zzz. Are we there yet? It's one of Connie's first English-language films and he hasn't really got the hang of the language yet, so his delivery is very clunky with lots of long pauses. It's painful to watch, because he doesn't come across as a very good actor--even though, obviously, he is, and it's just the language barrier that gets in the way. It's interesting to watch him struggle, considering what a master he later became when it came to speech rhythms and cadence. And yet, astonishingly, his expressions and body language are mesmeric and menacing as fuck, which makes for a strange combination. He does some great physical intimidation and smoking porn and deepthroats a banana (I'm not joking), so it's worth watching just for those. Boring-arse movie, though.

Nju: Short and sad. Only very poor prints of this seem to exist, but you get a nice bit of seductive and creepy Connie doing some hand porn and smoking porn, as per usual. Elisabeth Bergner was a fantastic actress, but I wouldn't call this film a must. Just painful in far too realistic a way, in the sorts of awfulnesses women suffer enough from men IRL, and just... depressing.

Der Gang in die Nacht: Beautiful little F.W. Murnau film. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, given that the reviews were lukewarm at best. It's one of those very very melodramatic and ballet-like silents where everything goes to hell for everybody and it gets progressively more tragic as it goes, but it's beautifully done. Connie has a minor role, but he is breathtakingly beautiful as the blind painter who regains his sight and wishes he hadn't. Everybody moves and emotes in an exaggeratedly poetic, symbolic manner with grand gestures and expressions, so it's one of those films you really have to watch like a modern dance performance. If you don't get Expressionism/Romanticism, forget it--then you won't get this one, either. There's true depth and beauty in all of Murnau's shots, like the one where the dancer is caught between the loves of two men and in the storm sequence. The casting is perfect throughout. Erna Morena is barely in it, but imbues her performance with a saintlike beauty; sometimes looking at her is like looking at an ecstatic nun or some dignified, virginal goddess from some Mediterranean country. My favourite shot in the film is her last one. And Olaf Fønss gets progressively better as the movie goes, and has some real tragedy and sensitivity and dignity even when his life falls apart; even through the foaming-at-the-mouth craziness, there is just something true in there, an emotional truth as he gives his all. And Connie, oh, Connie. He is at his silent movie best: a tortured, beautiful figure straight out of a Romantic novel. He only has a few scenes that are all about expressing existential grief, heartbreak and tortured vulnerability with his expressions and his body language, and he is pitch-perfect. His few scenes are achingly beautiful. All in all, I thought it was a beautiful movie, but you have to be in a certain mood to watch it and be familiar with the style to appreciate it. If you aren't prepared for full-on symbolic, dream-reality narratives and extremely flaily/extremely still dancerlike acting, you won't be able to enjoy it. Only for hardcore German Expressionist fans, this one.

The Beloved Rogue: John Barrymore (yeah, Drew's granddad, to those of you keeping track at home), a huge star at the time, specifically invited Connie over to the States for this big-budget, jolly medieval romp. Barrymore plays François Villon, a poet and a trickster figure, and Connie plays the superstitious, deliciously creeptastic king Louis XI (although it must be pointed out the king isn't a villain; more of a comic caricature). Barrymore had a crazy mancrush on Connie after seeing "Waxworks" and kept telegraphing him, saying he couldn't make this movie without him. Thus, Connie left for the US--heartbroken as he had to leave his wife and baby daughter behind, but knowing he couldn't miss this opportunity. The studio was shocked at his height, though, especially as the historical king Louis had been short and squat, so Connie played the entire part crouching under voluminous robes. The movie is good fun, and of course, Connie steals every scene he is in. In fact, he stole so many scenes that when Barrymore saw the first edits of the film, the test audiences loved Connie so much that Barrymore, in a fit of jealousy, told the editors to cut Connie's part down to a third of what it was, cutting out an entire subplot! The Villon/Louis bromance is also, um, something to behold--say what you will about men being allowed to express affection more freely in those days without it having to mean anything, it's hard to *not* see a homoerotic subtext in the film. Louis fondles Villon's nipples at one point, FFS. The last scene in particular has queer coding all over it. The tenderness with which Louis fondles Villon's face is touching--but that's what you get when you cast a guy who was a master at portraying unrequited love with members of both sexes. It's nearly identical to the heartbreaking, lovelorn way his hands hover around June Duprez's face in The Thief of Bagdad twelve years later.

Der Geiger von Florenz: And things were very Freudian. Like Nju, this is another one of Elisabeth Bergner's vehicles, directed by her husband, Paul Czinner. It's a nice little piece, but mostly memorable for having considerable queer interest. The main character is Renée, a feisty young girl who is deeply jealous of her stepmother and loves her father (Veidt) more than anything (yes, it's *exactly* as dodgy as it sounds). She tries to sabotage her father's new relationship to the point where her father has no choice but to send her to a Swiss boarding school. However, she misbehaves and runs away to Italy, dressed in drag. In Florence, she picks up a violin, and an artist (thinking her a pretty young boy!) spots her and invites her to his home to act as his model. Of course, her violinist ruse doesn't last for long and the artist falls in love with her (before he realises he's a girl). But there's a twist: the artist's sister--living with the artist as if they were husband and wife--also seems to have fallen in love with Renée. Meanwhile, the portrait the artist has painted of Renée appears in a German magazine and Renée's father recognises her, rushes to Italy and they're finally reunited. Bergner's acting, as usual, is astonishingly realistic and skilled, even if she's never convincing as a boy. But then, this movie plays with transvestism as a way for her to escape rigid gender roles, more than anything else. What's quite interesting is that the father/daughter relationship seems far more intense, passionate, hands-on and loving than the father's relationship with his new wife (which seems surprisingly neutral and not particularly sensuous), and the artist definitely comes across as queer (hey, I'll just take this pretty boy to my house and then ask if I can wash his back in the shower!), as does his sister. So you basically have a pair of bisexual siblings living in incest and a girl with a crazy Electra complex, and of course the girl falls in love with the artist because he reminds her of her dad. So she settles down with the incestuous siblings in some sort of bisexual love triangle, since she definitely didn't mind the sister touching her boobs and kissing her either. Ah, the 1920s. Connie doesn't get to do much, and the seemingly cute fatherliness ends up coming across dodgy even for its time, but I'm not sure if that's such a *bad* thing. It's quite harmless as a movie, but the queer interest is what makes it worth watching.

Die Flucht in die Nacht: Beautiful film, even if only a very chopped-up and deteriorated copy survives. It's based on Pirandello's play, Henry IV. The Wikipedia article describes the basic idea thus: "A talented actor and historian falls off his horse while playing the role of Henry IV in a historical pageant. After he comes to, he believes himself to be Henry. For the next twenty years, his wealthy nephew, Count de Nolli, funds an elaborate hoax in a remote villa, hiring actors to play the roles of Henry's privy councillors in order to simulate the 11th century court." The article also contains minor spoilers, but as what's left of the movie is so choppy, it's probably best if you do read it to get some idea of what's going on (the surviving copy of the film only has Italian intertitles). Connie's performance is breathtaking, especially as he realises his madness--the anguish you can see on his expressive face, and the way he uses his every facial muscle, timed perfectly and slowly is just riveting. So it's definitely worth watching.

Wilhelm Tell (silent version): Pretty standard silent historical drama, not bad compared to the crap talkie they made of it some years later. Connie plays Gessler as a stary-eyed, creepy hysteric, more of a caricature than anything else. It's not particularly memorable, but passes the time.

***

Blah, fast forward for the Veidt bits:

I Was A Spy: Zzz. Connie doesn't get to do much and he's barely in it. Scoreless, bleak, forgettable, blah war movie. Madeleine Carroll's acting is splendid, though, and Connie is at his early Thirties turbo-sex-panther level of horniness, but it's only really worth it for him. Read: the obnoxious seductive coos, the hungry, open-mouthed kissing and the way he drapes his entire body around his prey.

The Indian Tomb: Excruciatingly slow, poorly paced, and Connie's barely in the first part. He's got some great stuff in the second part, including some epic costume porn. I know a lot of lady fans like this one and Connie is gorgeous and hot, but this really could've done with some brisk editing. And if you know anything about Indian culture and Hinduism, the cultural fail gets horribly glaring. There's harmless Romantic Orientalism and then there's Scary Cruel Brown People Orientalism, and sadly, this falls in the latter category. He's stunningly beautiful when he shows up dressed like a god, but I can't help but think my brain would've exploded with joy if he'd actually showed up looking like Krishna or something, and not a Weimar approximation of an Indian god that has very little to do with actual Indian gods. Again, he's radiant and beautiful in his golden body paint and jewelry and headgear and his acting is splendid, but... yeah. I can't really get past the slow pacing and the racist fail of the film. Yet I'm not the type to be up in arms about it when it's something as old as this, because that'd make me seem ignorant and hypocritical--you can't really judge something this old by modern/postmodern standards because people simply weren't aware of these issues the same way we are now, so it's pointless to moan about it. I'm just apathetic about it, that's all. If you want a beturbanned Connie with some less failtastic and more positive/Romantic Orientalism (that genuinely loves its subject matter) than the sort that's fuelling this movie, watch Thief of Bagdad instead.

Whistling In The Dark: Seriously painful and unfunny excuse for a comedy. Red Skelton is bloody awful. It's hard not to stab your eyes out when watching this. Connie's the only good thing about the film.

Under The Red Robe: Nope, even Connie and the fact that it's set in Musketeer-era France--two things which can help me overlook a hell of a lot of flaws--can't help this dreck. A swashbuckling film with not much buckle or swash (he barely gets his fucking sword out when he has to sheath it again! There are no proper swishy fight scenes in a movie that's supposed to be about a swordsman!) and there's not much character stuff, either. Also, the less said about Annabella's acting the better. Her and Connie's accents are so thick and Sjöström didn't bother to correct them at all, it seems, so you can't even make out what the fuck they're saying half the time! This is truly dreadful, but again, worth it for a Connie fix if you're desperate and running out of stuff to watch.

Wilhelm Tell/They'll Never Surrender (1934): More terribly overacted and stilted early 30s Brit fare, co-produced with Germany and filmed in Germany and Switzerland. Connie plays Gessler again and apart from that, there's nothing to recommend the film, really. He gets to wield a whip and prance around in swishy, elegant robes, and do some rather disturbing hand porn while he's pulling on some gloves. But is it a good movie? No; it's fucking awful! The overenunciated dialogue is physically painful.

So, there you go. Hope this helps more people discover this amazing guy and some of the great films he made. Just don't blame me if you turn into a drooling maniac crawling on the floor and screaming "take me now" every time he shows up on screen, because that's a legit risk. *nod*

P.S. I already mentioned this at the top, but if you've made it this far, it's worth mentioning again: You can download yourself copies of pretty much all of the movies I've reviewed here on this page. Enjoy!