MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD HEIDELBERG (1927)

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CONTEST - Win a review of any available DVD or 'Streamer' of your choice* if you're the first to answer a Q attached to one of the write-ups. Please refrain from either Googling or searching for an answer via IMdB or other web movie services! These contests are plenty easy to solve just be using your little grey cells.

RECOMMENDED - Meaning Strongly Recommended. A film that's good enough or historically important enough to demand viewing. WARNING: A few real stinkers are important enough to rate this label. And, on the other hand, lots of pretty good or pretty valuable films, don't quite measure up to our RECOMMENDED level. (See also UNIQUE, below.)

FAMILY FRIENDLY - CAREFUL!! Not necessarily a KIDDIE pic, but a film that school kids may get into if the subject interests. You'll find foreign & silent pics in here as the need to read the sub-titles & inter-titles to follow the narrative and get all the jokes does wonders for ADD types.

LINK - To quickly find any Write-Up that includes an InterNet Link of interest for that specific film.

UNIQUE - Films that may not fit into the usual critical categories of Good, Bad or Indifferent, (certainly not indifferent!), but are worth watching because there just ain't nothing like 'em. Sui generis pics. (Phooey generis if they don't work for you.)

READ ALL ABOUT IT - While there's a book or two (or ten dozen) closely related to just about any film you might think of, here's a specific book you might not have known about (or thought of) that opens a window on the chosen title.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY - A place to vent those out-of-left-field thoughts.

POSTER - Hmm, I bet you can figure this one out.

(Hint: most of the posters will enlarge if you click on them.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT - sort of like those EAT THIS, NOT THAT diet books only with film instead of food as the topic. Sometimes, the substitute pick isn't the obvious 'better' choice, but one of those 'flawed-but-interesting' films that often get left behind.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID - some easy to miss element worth noting.

SILENT FILM - hey, figure it out (LOL)

. . . and DOUBLE-BILL - a suggested second feature.

To bring up the complete list in any of these categories, simply click on one of the LABELS when you come across one and everything with that designation will come up when the page reloads. Just scroll down. There's also a LABELS list near the bottom of all the pages.

Please let me know if there are any other LABELS you'd like to see.

AND YOU'RE DOING ALL THIS BECAUSE . . . ?

Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

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Tuesday, March 24, 2020

THE STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD HEIDELBERG (1927)

Even for a late silent (1924-‘29), when it seemed everyone was making masterpieces, this is something special. Funny, heartfelt & heartbreaking, a Ruritanian Royal/Commoner Romance for Ramon Novarro’s Crown Prince (cosseted, cloistered, emotionally corseted) and Norma Shearer’s inn-keeping barmaid (free-spirited & lovely) whom he meets and instantly falls in love with during his all-too-brief college sojourn, the only taste of common life he’ll ever know. ‘Golden Days’ to treasure during what’s likely to be a long lonely reign in a politically arranged marriage. Brought to life with all the expected wit, human comedy & knowingly naughty ‘touches’ you expect from Ernest Lubitsch*, here given without ironic distancing or quotation marks for heart-on-sleeve emotions; plus a truly gasp-inducing rhapsodic lyricism perhaps only possible on the silent screen. Loaded with unforgettable character turns and visual shorthand that sets up, comments on and resolves issues at a single stroke . . . with laughs tossed in as bonus. Novarro, good as he often was, never did anything better. But Shearer is the true revelation. Transformed by Lubitsch’s prodding into the natural warm-blooded actress she so desperately wanted to be and never quite managed elsewhere. An enchantment, her & the pic.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The official M-G-M DVD comes with a flat soundtrack, a real drawback on a silent pic! Instead, look for the superb Thames edition, produced by David Gill & Kevin Brownlow with a gorgeous original Carl Davis score. M-G-M’s ‘54 remake uses the Sigmund Romberg operetta score, but has little else to recommend it.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *It comes up very dark in available prints, but look sharp during the Novarro/Shearer courting scene for a little dachshund who makes a decidedly phallic appearance.

DOUBLE-BILL: Billy Wilder & William Wyler at Lubitsch’s funeral. Wilder: Well, no more Lubitsch. Wyler: Worse, no more Lubitsch pictures. Yet, Wyler got closer than most with the Royal/Commoner romance of ROMAN HOLIDAY/’53. Wilder’s Lubitsch tribute is his uneven, emotionally charged LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON/’57.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2020

THE STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD HEIDELBERG (1927)

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