The Student of Prague (Arthur Robison, 1935)

Arthur Robison's last film, The Student of Prague is the third movie adaptation of the Faust-inspired Hanns Heinz Ewers novel, with each version featuring a heavy hitter in the title role (Paul Wegener in 1913, Conrad Veidt in 1926, Anton Walbrook here). I wrote about the 1926 version on this very site way back in September of 2016. Apparently, September is Student of Prague month for my household.

It's not hard to see subtext everywhere in this particular adaptation. Robison was a Jewish director making a film in Germany in 1935 about a man losing his soul, and there's a palpable feeling of a society losing its way and succumbing to its worst instincts (most of us in the current century are unfortunately able to relate). Several cast members went on to collaborate with (or tolerate) the Nazi regime, and Robison would most likely have had to flee Germany had he not died shortly after making the film.

I have not read the Ewers novel or watched the 1913 film, but the '26 and '35 adaptations share what the kids and hippies call a vibe while also taking pretty distinct approaches. Both films obviously share similar narratives and were made by filmmakers working in the tradition of German expressionism, but the 1926 film is more dreamlike while the '35 update is more visceral (though there are some dreamy scenes here, too). It's the difference between a sleeping and a waking nightmare.

In both films, a cash-strapped college student and expert fencer named Balduin lets a mysterious figure grant the power of acquiring wealth in exchange for the young man's mirror image, a visually poetic spin on the selling of one's soul. As these exchanges usually go, things start out great and then go spectacularly south. In both films, the mirror image takes on an existence of its own, tormenting the student and driving him to madness. In the 1926 film, Balduin is obsessed with wealth from the get-go and spurns the advances of a kindly flower girl because he believes that marrying a rich woman is his only possible option at becoming a wealthy man. The devil figure in that film pulls the strings to bring Balduin together with a rich countess.

The Balduin character in the 1936 version, however, is not such a materialist. At least, not initially. The film begins with Balduin (Walbrook) and his college chums drinking and carousing at their regular hangout, the bar on the ground floor of the neighborhood inn. Balduin is enamored with a young woman, Lydia (Edna Greyff in the equivalent of the flower girl role, though she has less to do in this movie), who pals around with the college men at the inn while her elderly aunt stoically knits a few tables away while ignoring all the action, even remaining seated and busy at her knitting when a drunken fencing match breaks out near her.

An opera singer, Julia (Dorothea Wieck), arrives at the inn with high-falutin' admirer Baron Waldis (Erich Fiedler) and darkly mysterious figure Dr. Carpis (Theodor Loos) in tow. Recognized by the boozed-up college dudes, Julia performs a song for them using their tabletop as a stage. Balduin is smitten. When he wins a fencing duel against his buddy Zavrel (Volker von Collande) after stopping the man from pawing at Julia, he gets some reciprocal attention from her. Opera singer and college student are horny for each other, and Carpis sees his opportunity to collect another soul. Insecure at the difference in status between himself and Julia, Balduin is receptive to the strange doctor's offer of wealth for mirror image.

Robison delivers an expressive, disturbing, and still-modern adaptation of the familiar story. He's a skilled visual stylist, but he can be a subtle one, too, saving the dramatic camera movements, bravura shots, and powerful images for just the right moment. Walbrook, a gifted actor, gives an emotional and empathetic performance while avoiding sentimentality and hamminess (the dice scene near the end is particularly spooky), and Loos gives an unusually conflicted human spin on his devil.

Most of these actors remained in Germany, either waiting out the Nazis or joining them. Wieck, freshly returned to Germany after a failed attempt to become a Hollywood star (her Hollywood films flopped), was reportedly critical of the Nazis, though her husband was a baron who had some influence in the party, and she was the guest of honor at a reception held by Goebbels. Loos was a member of the advisory council to the Reichsfilmkammer, the Nazi regulatory organization that controlled the film industry. Von Collande joined the Nazi party and acted in several propaganda films.

Anton Walbrook's story played out differently. Walbrook, an Austrian living in Germany for its plethora of film and theater opportunities, was Jewish on his mother's side ("mixed race in the first degree" according to the Nuremberg Laws) and gay. When an international coproduction required Walbrook to record some voiceovers in Hollywood in 1936, he took that as his opportunity to escape. After completing the Hollywood work, he moved to England, continuing his stage and screen success and understandably changing his first name from Adolph to Anton. His post-Germany roles include the 1940 Gaslight, two Powell & Pressburger classics (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and The Red Shoes), The Queen of Spades, two Max Ophuls classics (La Ronde and Lola Montes; he also dubbed the narration for the German version of Ophuls' Le Plaisir), and Preminger's Saint Joan.