Svengali (1931)

Directed by Archie Mayo [Other horror films: N/A]

I don’t necessarily think that this is a great film, and were it not for John Barrymore’s great performance as the titular Svengali, I doubt I’d rate this as well as I’ll end up rating it.

By no means a bad film, the problem is too little happens for quite a lengthy period at the beginning. Sure, we get a solid sequence near the beginning when Svengali, with his powers of hypnotism, causes a woman to commit suicide, but afterward, we get a lot of build-up (with a few creepy scenes, but not enough) and not enough action, which was problematic.

Luckily John Barrymore (of the more popular Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from 1920, along with a similar role in 1931’s The Mad Genius) puts in a great performance as Svengali. The beautiful Marian Marsh (who was also in The Mad Genius, along with 1935’s The Black Room) was solid too, though didn’t have much character due to her being hypnotized throughout a large portion of the film. I’ll admit I found Bramwell Fletcher (1932’s The Mummy) underwhelming, but I loved both Lumsden Hare and Donald Crisp (who I literally just saw in The Uninvited and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

The ending is decent, and surprisingly tragic for some involved, but it’s an 80 minute movie with pretty much only Barrymore to support it (I loved Hare and Crisps’ characters, but they didn’t have enough to do with the conclusion to greatly help matters), and for early 30’s horror, there are better movies out there.

6.5/10