Vieil Heidelberg

Freed from the strictures of the Karlsburg royal palace to attend University, THE STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD HEIDELBERG experiences true love for the first time.

This wonderful, exuberant, heartbreaking film - one of the last major movies of the Silent Era - is a scintillating example of the artistry of director Ernst Lubitsch. Filled with wry humor & aching pathos, Lubitsch tells a tale which is a persuasive paean to the power of the talkless film.

MGM had great faith in this movie & gave it excellent production values, with crowds of extras and picture-perfect sets & costumes. Based in part on the Wilhelm Meyer-Förster novel & the operetta by Sigmund Romberg, the film revels in romanticism.

Ramon Novarro, always eager to please his audience, brings great charm to the title role. Although about 10 years too old to be playing a typical university freshman, he nonetheless brings tremendous enthusiasm to the role. It was this essential boyishness which encouraged MGM to continue giving him roles which were too young for him (in 1932's HUDDLE he would play a Yale freshman). The Studio also insisted on giving their Mexican star a wide range of ethnic parts, everything from Chinese to Arab. He played them all well, but none better than here in STUDENT PRINCE. It is a shame that Hollywood would not reciprocate by giving him topnotch assignments.

Norma Shearer is radiant as Kathi, the vivacious & lovely barmaid who is beloved by the Prince. She gives a wonderful performance in what was considered a breakthrough role for her. She married MGM executive Irving Thalberg the same year STUDENT PRINCE was released and her stardom at the Studio was firmly established. She earned her celebrity through hard work and honest talent, however, not by noodling with the boss.

Jean Hersholt, as the Prince's gentle tutor, puts his own stamp on the kind of sympathetic role with which he would become associated. Miles removed from his villainous portrayals in TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY (1922) or GREED (1925), Hersholt here is the very embodiment of benevolence.

Gustav von Seyffertitz as the cold King, Edmund Connelly as the stern Prime Minister & Bobby Mack as an old rustic retainer all add very fine support. Movie mavens will recognize Lionel Belmore as a boisterous student & Charles K. Arthur as a drowsy inebriate, both unbilled.

Carl Davis supplied one of his typically bravura scores for the home video reissue of the film. He conducts the English Chamber Orchestra.

While Karlsburg is a fictitious Teutonic kingdom, Heidelberg is a very real city located in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. As ancient capital of the Rhenish Palatinate, its electoral counts - always a branch of the Wittelsbach royal family of Bavaria - played a significant role in the history of both the Holy Roman Empire and Central Europe. Although originally Roman Catholic, political vicissitudes brought about a change to Protestantism centuries ago. Heidelberg University was founded in 1386 by Count Rupert I & chartered the same year by Pope Urban VI. After a period of dissolution, it was revitalized in the 19th Century as a center of the sciences, law & philosophy. Town & gown are both overlooked by Heidelberg Castle, one of Europe's mightiest fortresses, where it sits on its hill 330 feet above the Neckar River. Its cellars contains the fabled Heidelberg Tun, a prodigious 18th Century wine cask capable of holding 49,000 gallons - surely a source of wonder to the Student Prince & his classmates...

I found this film an absolute delight. All of the leads put in outstanding preformances. The romance between Prince Karl(Ramon Novarro) and Kathi(Norma Shearer) is wonderfully presented, and it is truly poignant. I did feel, however, that the film loses momentum, to an extent, twoards the end. The music score on the home video edition is, like most by Carl Davis, a big plus. Well worth seeing.

Before Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly wrote their immortal score for The Student Prince, it had originally been performed as a straight dramatic work by the great turn of the last century stage actor, Richard Mansfield. Entitled In Old Heidelberg it is what we are in fact seeing here as opposed to a silent version of the musical, an oxymoron if there ever was one.

I do so love the music of Romberg and Donnelly, especially what they wrote for The Student Prince. Yet I was able to appreciate the fine dramatic work of Ramon Novarro as the prince of Karlsbad and Norma Shearer as Kathi the barmaid. They certainly were as romantic a couple as ever graced the silent screen.

Without the music, this version of The Student Prince went for characterization instead. There is a long sequence of about a quarter of the running time of the film that goes into Prince Karl's childhood with young Philippe DeLacy playing the prince as a child. We see the relationship with the very stern King played by Gustave Von Seyfertitz and later on when he's introduced to his tutor and closest friend, Jean Hersholt. Hersholt has the best performance in the film.

Novarro plays a most charming prince and Shearer is a fetching barmaid with whom he falls in love with. After the childhood prologue, the rest of the film is pretty much the same as the 1954 version with Ann Blyth, Edmond Purdom and the voice of Mario Lanza.

For reasons I don't understand MGM which held the rights to the Student Prince did not make a sound version until 1954. Odd when you consider that during the Thirties they had Allan Jones under contract who would have been wonderful in the part. Having heard him sing Deep In My Heart I can attest to that. Failing that it sure could have been a property for Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald.

I believe the German locale of the story probably had something to do with it not being filmed. Also the subject of an errant prince refusing to face his responsibilities was a big international story with the once and future Edward VIII giving it all up for the woman he loved. I can believe that Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer probably did not want to anger the British market at that time.

Though I missed the Romberg/Donnelly score, I still enjoyed the performances of Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer and the rest of the cast being transported back to Old Heidelberg under the masterful direction of Ernest Lubitsch. Try to see this if it is ever broadcast again.

I watched this delightful film on TCM last night. What a revelation! Although the print quality has clearly suffered over the years, the high quality of the original production values shines through. The famous Lubitcsh Touch is all over this sweet, moving film.

The acting is also superb! Navarro and Shearer give believable performances as a star-crossed couple in turn-of-the-century Germany. Navarro, in particular, gives a pitch-perfect portrayal of a reluctant prince who longs only for a simple life surrounded by school-friends and his first love.

Also giving a beautiful performance as the prince's tutor and mentor was Jean Hersholt.

I have never particularly enjoyed silent films - many seem to me to be overly melodramatic. But this film changed my opinion. The actors and director were able to communicate so much with very few dialog cards. It made me realize what was lost when talking pictures took over and everything became more literal.

Even if you don't think you like silent films, give this one a try.

Ernst Lubitsch's silent films are as graceful and enchanting as his sound pictures, but the director's silents are unfairly left in the corner and don't always get the distinction they truly deserve. Along with "Lady Windermere's Fan" and "The Marriage Circle", this heartbreaking silent classic is one of Lubitsch's most perfect and poignant American silent films.

"The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg"(surviving copies only say " Old Heidelberg") is a very moving and heartbreaking love story and pretty much in the best Lubitsch tradition of subtle, graceful, witty romantic comedy, tinged with an air of sadness and poignancy, much like what you see in the later Lubitsch sound masterworks like "The Shop Around the Corner", "Heaven Can Wait", and "Cluny Brown". Norma Shearer gives what could be her greatest and most satisfying silent performance as Kathi, a popular barmaid with fraternal students and townsfolk in the quasi-mythical university town of Heidelberg. Ramon Novaro is superb as her prince charming, the student prince who falls in love with her.

If you liked this one, I recommend Lubitsch's other great silent love story from this period, the rarely seen and appreciated "Eternal Love."