Don Quixote

It is unusual to see scrappy direction from Pabst, but I was disappointed with this film. What is interesting about this film is Shalyapin.

In opera, and folksong, Shalyapin took the art of acting seriously. He would jump into the skin of the character he was playing or of the narrator of a song. He was almost like Lon Chaney, when it came to costume.

Here the great man sings in English, and seems to be ideal as the pathetic character who sells all he has, to buy books of knightly romances; then, with his servant, Sancho Panza, sets out to do good deeds.

Shalyapin's English is excellent, and he speaks and sings with a heavy accent that is Russian, tinged with the accent of the country in which he lived in exile - France.

George Robey, with his music hall accent, who was beginning to shake off his "coward" image (He was a conscientious objector during the first world war) plays Sancho Panza.

Shalyapin does sing some songs in this scrappy production; but, unlike, Pabst, he does not leave us disappointed.

I saw the New York Museum of Modern Art's print (the English language version). Only Chaliapin does much singing, but the music and lyrics are not much and I suggest you listen to his recordings to judge his singing. His acting seems very much staged.

George Robey is very good as Sancho Panza (Don Quixote's servant), playing him as a Music Hall character. The scene with the traveling players at an inn is also interesting and fun.

Feodor Chaliapin stars as Don Quixote, a mentally unbalanced old man who believes that he's a knight engaged in fantastic, romantic adventures. He's assisted/enabled by his cohort Sancho Panza (George Robey)

Pabst filmed multiple versions of this at once, with some cast changes, and the English and French versions are apparently the most widely available. I saw the English version. I've read a lot of good things about this movie for many years and was happy to finally see, but I have to wonder if the praise is for the French version. I must admit that I don't really care for the Don Quixote story, nor any film and TV versions that I've seen. In fact, the musical film Man of La Mancha was one of the most excruciating movie watching experiences of my life. In this version, Chaliapin breaks out into operatic song a few times, which only served to throw my interest to the wind. I appreciated some of the camera tricks Pabst used, but with obnoxious characters, terrible sound, and Chaliapin's mangled English rendering most his dialogue unintelligible, I didn't really care for this at all. Oh, and here's another example of a film with no current genre thread in which it fits.

(This is a review of the VHS version)

G.W.Pabst's film version of "Don Quixote", originally filmed in three languages, but with the same leading actor, may not please all lovers of the great Cervantes novel, but it makes a fascinating document for music lovers and opera buffs. Although not based at all on the Jules Massenet opera in which he sang the title role, this is the only chance to see and hear the great Russian basso Fyodor Chaliapin in one of his greatest roles.

Chaliapin revolutionized the art of opera acting, and if he had wanted to, could have been an equally effective non-singing actor, although his English is heavily accented and he tends to declaim rather than just speak. His singing voice in this film is probably not what it once was, but he is so charismatic that he holds the audience riveted.(You may squirm through some of the songs, though - this isn't Massenet's opera, or "Man of La Mancha", for that matter.)

The supporting cast is quite good in both English and French versions (I haven't seen the German one), and Chaliapin himself speaks and sings better French than English. The photography is beautiful, although this really isn't Spain,and the windmill sequence is a flabbergasting accomplishment for 1933. You may like a little more emotional involvement in your movies, though.

Be warned - the French version (on the videocassette, not the DVD) has no subtitles - they assume you've already seen it in English since they both come in the same package.

G. W. Pabst directed two version of the story of the knight of the Woeful Countenance, both released in 1933; Chaliapin also provided the voice for Lotte Reiniger's animated version that same year. I took a look at the English-language version. It was not, alas, in particularly good shape, had twenty minutes cut from its 75-minute length, and Chaliapin, although he looks like the classical emaciated version of the Don, and sings beautifully, has a Georgian accent that made him rather difficult to understand.

George Robey as Sancho Panza is excellent, and Cervantes story is transformed from a satire to an unmitigated tragedy.