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THE AMERICAN FILM
really great film, lavish in spectacle, superb and smooth in direction, splendidly photographed, with Norma Shearer, Ramon Novarro, and Jean Hersholt as the players. The Student Prince was typical of the Americanisation of Lubitsch. It was a meaningless, superficial exposition of sexual sentimentality, rendered acceptable to the public by a perfection of technical accomplishment that has rarely been equalled. (For this reason it was voted by the general public as 'the film of the year.') It was an example of the keeping up of appearances. In reality, tearing aside the veil of glamour, Lubitsch 's famous subtlety had degenerated into a lot of men all taking ofT their hats at the same moment and the interplay of opening and shutting doors. Of old Heidelburg, where the action was set, the film told not a thing, for the atmosphere was that of the second-class property rooms. As an instance of sheer undiluted picture-sense, The Student Prince was to be appreciated. As a film, in the development of Lubitsch 's career, it was worthless.
Like The Student Prince, Lubitsch 's The Patriot was hailed as the world's greatest film, with the world's greatest actor, made by the world's greatest director, with a cast of twenty thousand. As a matter of fact it was none of these things, which were due to Paramount's highly imaginative publicity department. It was a ridiculous travesty of Russian history; a mauled version of Alfred Neumann's play; an absurd, melodramatic, bestial display of bad taste. It is, of course, well-known that Jannings is a great actor in the theatrical manner, with much gesturing, mouthing, gibbering, and eye-rolling as his assets. That much is apparent from his early historical films, Danton, Anne Boleyn, and later, from Tar tuff e and The Last Laugh. But the Paramount-Lubitsch-Jannings merger was nothing if not ludicrous. Whereas, in his earlier German work, Jannings put sincerity, force and meaning into his gestures, in his Hollywood period there was nothing but a bare framework. Jannings as the mad Paul the First succeeded in being ridiculous, unnecessarily lascivious, and, to an admirer of his better work, merely pitiful. It was sad to see good material put to such prostitution. Lewis Stone, on the other hand, always a quiet, restrained actor, played the difficult part of the treacherous Count Pahlen with dignity, reserve, and self-control, due not to Lubitsch or Paramount, but to his own personality. In short, The Patriot, despite its natural leanings towards cinema, was a mishandled, highly theatrical, over-acted,
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