Le juif errant

Maurice Elvey's second try at this three part barnstormer (Matheson Lang didn't get a jousting sequence) remains a Sunday School outing but the ingredients and his technical control of them, give it enduring interest.

Conrad Veidt's first English speaking outing has him more convincing than the British old hands, getting about in costume warehouse gear, though the familiar face players do well - Peggy Ashcroft, Francis L. Sulivan and Felix Aylmer.

Compare this with the soon to follow PRIVATE LIVES OF HENRY VIII and you have a snap shot of the problems of the native British film industry - competent, unadventurous, respectful and old fashioned.

It is a measure of Veidt and Elvey that they still manage to involve us in the totally bogus story of the Jew who cursed Christ and found himself stuck on earth till the Second Coming. We actually worry about Conrad's "Is my time not yet come."

Another reviewer, in 2002, commented on this film: "The film unfortunately ends rather abruptly and arbitrarily. Matathias has only got as far as the Middle Ages when the curse is suddenly lifted and he is permitted to die. No compelling reason is given for why this particular time and place should be the end of the Wandering Jew's journey." In fact, the Middle Ages segment is the second one; it is followed by the Renaissance segment and finally the Spanish Inquisition, in which the Jew is burned as a heretic. I think the answer to the decision to end the Jew's life in this period has to do with the period when the film was made, the early 30s, when the Nazis were once again asking "Are you a Jew?" and condemning people based on the answer.

(I should add that the same director made a silent film of The Wandering Jew, 10 years earlier, and there is a note on IMDb that his star was famous in the role in theatrical productions. So the story and probably its blazing finale were established in a stage version much earlier.)

The original story would be that the Jew is to wait "until Christ comes again," i.e. the Second Coming, the Last Judgement. The film script modifies this to "until I come to you again," and the plot shows us the slow progress of Mathatias from a man who would rather see his beloved dead than alive with her husband, to an understanding of the Christian hope in life after death and a less selfish love (in the Italian story, where he decides not to kill his wife as a gesture of possession when she wants to become a nun), to an actual Christ-like role in the Seville sequence, where a whore defines her relationship with him as that of Mary Magdalene to Christ (thank heavens the DaVinci Code theory had not been cooked up at the time). So Christ "comes to him again" as he is being burned as a heretic.

Interestingly, his heresy consists of (1) blasphemy, in saying that Christ might be hard put to recognize his own, i.e. the inquisitors themselves, since they are not Christlike, and (2) refusing to deny his Jewishness. Christ, of course, was himself brought before the High Priests on a charge of blasphemy. The film sort of finesses the problem of baptism (in the version I saw, there was no evidence of the Italian son's being baptized, but the friar says that he has gone to Heaven when he dies), which is what the Inquisitors are in principle asking Mathatias to undertake.

However, the decision is presented to him not as being baptized in Christ but rather as denying his Jewishness, ceasing to be a Jew, and in the early 30s the ringing declaration--by a Christ figure--"I am a Jew!" must have been pretty strong stuff.

The end of another British film starring Veidt, Jew Suss, is similar; Suss in fact has a choice to declare himself not Jewish, since in fact his father was a local aristocrat, but he opts to die a Jew, representing the people he grew up with. Both Suss and Mathatias are heavy-duty sinners (lust, avarice, and pride to say the least) and their Jewishness is not "normalized"--parts of the Wandering Jew look like an excellent production of Merchant of Venice--but they redeem their sins by their concern for the poor, the outcast, and, in Jew Suss's case, specifically Jews in a pogrom situation.

Since Veidt in fact insisted on declaring he was a Jew on official German forms in the early 30s, although he wasn't (his wife was), his choice of two roles of Jewish martyrs was a pretty obvious political move. (Later in Hollywood he starred as a Nazi general in Escape, whose plot turns on the internment in a prison camp of a famous American Jewish actress who was born in Germany.) I think there was a lot of denial in the UK and America about the situation of the Jews under the Nazis, and Veidt seems to have done what he could to make it clearer that antisemitism should disgust decent people and especially Christians.

The Wandering Jew is a figure from a mediaeval legend who was said to have mocked Jesus on the way to His Crucifixion. As a punishment he was cursed with an unwanted immortality and doomed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming.

A silent film on the subject of the Wandering Jew was made in Britain in 1923, of which this is a remake. Both films had the same director, Maurice Elvey. In this version the Jew is Mathathias, a wealthy citizen of Jerusalem, who is living in adultery with another man's wife. His mistress is seriously ill, and Mathathias believes that Jesus is the only man who can save her. He meets Jesus on the way to Calvary and begs Him to heal the woman. Jesus replies that the woman will be healed if she returns to her husband, provoking Mathathias to utter the fateful curse. When the woman dies, he tries to commit suicide by stabbing himself, but fails when the knife breaks.

The film does not follow all of Mathathias's wanderings through the centuries, but concentrates upon three episodes, one during the Crusades, one in mediaeval Sicily and one in 16th century Seville. He has repented of his sins and is a now a good man, a wise and much-loved doctor who will treat the poor without fee. He is doomed, however, never to find happiness, and his goodness does not spare him from the attentions of the the Spanish Inquisition, which has begun a campaign of anti-Jewish persecutions. Mathathias is given the chance to save himself by denying Judaism and proclaiming his allegiance to Catholicism, but he refuses, saying that if Christ were to return to Earth He would not recognise the Church as His own.

The film was made in 1933, shortly after Hitler's rise to power, and was one of two British films from 1933 and 1934 which used historical incidents of persecution of the Jews as a way of commenting on Nazi anti-Semitism. The other was "Jew Suss" which also starred Conrad Veidt, a German actor who had fled Germany after the Nazis came to power. The American-made "The House of Rothschild" from around the same period had a similar agenda; all three films were later remade by the Nazis but with the central message reversed so that they became examples of anti-Semitic propaganda.

In common with "The Wandering Jew" has some features common to many early talkies, notably a stagey and exaggerated style of acting, although some might think that this is not altogether inappropriate in a film based upon an old legend rather than modern-day realities. After ninety years it is starting to show its age; the quality of the soundtrack on the version which I recently saw on British television was not always good. My difficulties in understanding were worsened by the fact that Veidt spoke English with a heavy foreign accent. (His difficulties with the language had doomed an attempt to break into the American cinema in the late twenties). The Crusader and Sicilian scenes are not very interesting, but the film improves during the final scenes in Seville. Despite his poor English, Veidt is able to invest his character with a dignity and nobility which contrasts sharply with the baseness and cruelty of those who persecute him and his people. The film becomes a condemnation of bigotry and intolerance and a plea for reason, humanity and justice. 7/10.

A British adaptation of a famous story that has since lapsed into obscurity, THE WANDERING JEW strives to be a lush historical epic but in fact it feels long-winded and dragged out. The story is about a man who is cursed to eternal life, and adopts the following format: the wayfarer travels to a community, is involved in the events, finally exposed, and forced to move on to the next place. There's no real character arc or insight here; events are just portrayed 'as is'.

It's a dated affair that feels rather yawn-worthy, unfortunately. The epic scenes have dated in the worst way and the crowd shots all feel rather theatrical. The religious aspects to the storyline were also dull and old-fashioned. The main draw for me was the chance to see German actor Conrad Veidt (of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI fame) in his first English-speaking part, although he's hidden behind flowing robes, make-up, and a straggly beard for the running time. The ending is abrupt and the whole film feels like it has little to say despite best intentions.

"The Wandering Jew" is a fairly straightforward retelling of that legend. The film's strong points are Conrad Veidt's central performance, a good supporting cast of actors who would later be better known, and some very impressive production values ... including sets and costumes representing several different centuries. The film has an aggressively Christian viewpoint, but cannot strictly be considered Christian propaganda because the legend of the Wandering Jew is not part of Christian teaching: this story isn't in the Bible.

Veidt plays Matathias, a Jew of the Holy Land who happens to be nearby on the road to Golgotha when Christ is brought to the place of Crucifixion. When Matathias expresses a lack of concern for Christ's fate, Christ tells him "You will remain here until I return". A softly glowing light grows stronger, and Matathias stares in horror.

Because of Christ's words, Matathias has been cursed with immortality. He cannot die, he cannot grow older, and he must periodically relocate to another community (and establish a new identity) so that nobody will notice that he never ages. The film is necessarily episodic: we see Matathias trying to blend into one community, then the narrative abruptly jumps ahead to another century as Matathias has relocated yet again.

This film's strangest (and most interesting) aspect is the decision not to depict Christ directly ... neither by image nor by voice. During the early scenes, Christ is apparently located just outside the right-hand edge of the film's frame; Veidt and the other actors turn in profile to the camera and stare at something offscreen. (The entire movie has the feel of a rather creaky stage play, and the feeling is especially pervasive here.) When Christ speaks to Veidt, we do not hear an actor's voice ... instead, we see words (in a very ornate type font) superimposed directly in front of Veidt's face, spelling out Christ's malediction. There is an eerie glow from just beyond the frame, apparently representing Christ's aura. For those who wonder about such things: Christ's voice speaks in a serif typeface.

SPOILER WARNING. The film unfortunately ends rather abruptly and arbitrarily. Matathias has only got as far as the Middle Ages when the curse is suddenly lifted and he is permitted to die. No compelling reason is given for why this particular time and place should be the end of the Wandering Jew's journey. Most versions of the Wandering Jew legend (including the classic science-fiction novel "A Canticle for Liebowitz") state that the Jew is still wandering, right up to the present day, because (so they claim) Christ has not yet returned. It would have been interesting if this film had included an epilogue set in the here and now (England, 1933) in which the Wandering Jew is still living among us.

Peggy Ashcroft (not yet Dame Peggy) is very good and quite attractive in a very small role. Francis L. Sullivan, normally an excellent character actor, is wasted here in a role that lets him ponce about in a bishop's elaborate robes but which gives him nothing to do. The historical details are more accurate than is usual in films of this period.

"The Wandering Jew" is an interesting fantasy, and its religious aspects are less obtrusive than they might have been. I recommend this film.