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46
Pictures and Pichjrepver
JUNE 1925
The Black
A British spectacular film made abroad.
This," observed a well-known, if somewhat highbrow film critic to me after the first screening of The Blackguard, at the Albert Hall, "is the best British film I've ever seen because it is so German." Though not entirely in agreement with the worthy fellow's sentiments, I can honestly say that The Blackguard is a noteworthy contribution by a Britisher to the art of making films.
It has a story of music and musicians, a difficult theme, and a story, unfortunately, none too good. But the settings and lighting are exquisite, the acting very fine, and the direction distinctive, though unequal.
This tale of a famous violinist commences capitally, by showing the sordid environment that failed to keep down a rising genius. Then it shows this lad grown to manhood, and achieving fame, and finally happiness. The way which it shows him is interesting. Continuity, the film cannot boast of. But then, neither can life. And life is made up of yet such small things having bearing upon great things as are seen in The Blackguard. Also the hero, when a boy, is played by that delightful and capable lad, Martin Herzberg, who appeared as the -young " David " in a recent David Copperfield film.
Everyone was rather sorry when he grew up, although.. Walter Rilla, who plays the fully-developed genius both looked and acted like one. The heroine, a Russian Princess, for whose sweet sake the story suddenly takes a header into Bolshevism, is rather colourless, even though she is played by Jane Novak. The dominant figures, so far as acting goes, are the old musician, who turns Bolshie, played by^ Bernhard Goetzke and the hero's besotted grandmother, the latter a powerful, though sinister characterstudy by Rosa Valetti.
Goetzke with that strange face of his, and that method he has of creating the maximum of effect with the minimum of actual movement gives a great performance as " Levenski." As a ne'er-dowell musician, or blazingeyed Revolutionist, he was excellent, and seemed somehow to leave everything flat and cold when he was absent from the screen for a sequence or two.
There is some notable imaginative work in the film, particularly in the artist's vision (caused by a most prosaic blow on the head from a cognac bottle) of the realms of music and the God of Music, whom he sees in a glorified likeness of his teacher " Adrian Levenski." The Blackguard is a movie that decidedly must not be missed by the discerning: film fan. T. Lederer.