Der Student von Prag

Student of Prague, The (1926)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

German horror/drama is a remake of the 1914 version, which was the first German horror film. A poor college student (Conrad Veidt) falls in love with a rich girl but knows he'll never get her due to his poorness. Then enters Scapinelli (Werner Krauss), a strange man who offers the student 600,000 gold pieces in return for something from the students room. The student agrees but is shocked when the man takes his soul. Outside the good performances by Veidt and Krauss, this film really doesn't add too much that the 1914 film didn't do better. This film here runs fifty-minutes longer but the tiresome pace doesn't help matters and even the special effects were better done in the previous version.

This is a more elaborate, lavish and altogether satisfactory version of the above, with Conrad Veidt perfectly cast in the lead and with Werner Krauss also making for a menacing Scapinelli. The expressionistic elements are well in evidence here (director Henrik Galeen had written Murnau's NOSFERATU [1922] and, stylistically, the film does bear some resemblance to it): while not quite reaching the heights of, say, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919) and NOSFERATU itself, it's very much deserving of the reputation it enjoys in the horror film genre and, despite the shoddy print quality of the Alpha DVD, replete with missing frames (where are Kino when you need them?), I'm truly glad I was given an opportunity to watch this elusive classic from the Silent era after having read so much about it since childhood! Let's hope now that another highly-regarded (and much-filmed) Conrad Veidt vehicle, THE HANDS OF ORLAC (1925), also gets a DVD release soon...

I watched Alpha Video's cheap DVD of this. It lacks the original title and inter titles, though some easy to read new inter titles have been added. The musical score is unremarkable, and while called original by the DVD box, seems "canned." Balduin is a poor student, but a great fencer. Apart from that, we don't learn very much about him or what he wants. He is, however, humiliated by his poverty. He wishes perhaps a rich heiress would marry him.

A mephistophelian character named Scarpinetti offers to deliver on that, and in one scene dramatically stands atop a windy hill by a fallen tree gesturing towards a hunting party. They seem to follow his directions, which leads to a rich heiress having trouble with her horse near Balduin, who rescues her.

However, this is just a tease from Scarpinetti. Balduin goes to visit the woman later, taking with him a flower from a poor flower girl (who seems sweet on him). He fidgets with the flower behind his back, and seems to be contemplating giving it to the rich woman, when her fiancé's large flower arrangement arrives. Balduin realizes he needs money to woo this woman (forgetting, seemingly, that he'd wanted a rich woman for money in the first place anyway).

He makes a deal with Scarpinetti: 600,000 pieces of gold (! - error in the intertitle, maybe?) and Scarpinetti gets to take anything he wishes from Balduin's room. He manages to take Balduin's mirror reflection, and while that would seem to be the end of the deal, Scarpinetti still influences events in Balduin's life.

There are some striking scenes in the movie, and some scenes that really drag. One that goes on for a long time is a party after someone had died, and there doesn't seem to be much purpose to it, or at least for it to have been so long.

Balduin's mirror reflection doppelganger doesn't show up much, but figures in more towards the end, which is pretty satisfactory. I'm curious to see the other adaptations of this story now as well.

At the least, remakes should allow an opportunity to see the differences in film-making from different periods, and, hopefully, to see the advances made in the years bypast; at best, it displays something new and intelligent to a familiar story. The 1913 version of "The Student of Prague" was a film meant to bring respectability to cinema by adapting popular literature; however, the filmmakers lacked an understanding of their own medium and created a, for then, typically static motion picture. Henrik Galeen made this remake during the maturity of one of the greatest periods of national cinema in the history of the art form.

Obviously, close-ups and medium shots were common by 1926, where there were none in the aforementioned film of 1913. There's scene dissection, some inspired cinematography and editing and expressionistic sets by Hermann Warm, as well. We actually get to see the actors here, and Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss do exceptionally well. The gypsy storyline fits into this version easily.

Cinematographers Günther Krampf and Erich Nitzschmann produced a large shadow of the Devil, which interacts with mass, in one shot; superimpose a saw cutting at Balduin's head in a moment of internal narration; shake the camera for a drunk POV shot; use irises and move the camera during close-ups. The rescue from a horse scene and the haunting finale are the most impressive visually, for the chiaroscuro lighting, special effects and editing. Some shots even seem intentionally reminiscent of the 1913 version. Additionally, the filmmakers were able to punctuate the mirror motif within this film of the doppelgänger thanks to state-of-the-art effects.

I first saw this at Pacific Film Archive & was looking forward to it. But the projection was so slow that I became nervous & it seemed to be taking forever to get going. Finally after about 40 min. I had to leave. The film just was unwatchable at that speed. Afterwards I regretted not staying to the end. Now I have seen it on DVD I understand it a lot more and it still drags at 110 min. But the Archive print was perfect & the DVD has lots of frames missing. The best effect was Veidt walking out of the mirror. Beautifully done. There are a lot of titles removed & you can see someone tell somebody something & with the title removed there is a jump cut. HINT: the people who made the movie did so to give the audience information. when a title is removed you get the opposite effect. You become confused & cheated. The movie does not need a 2nd editor. The editor on the credits is fine. Its possible to ruin a movie by this stupidity.