"Der Student von Prag" or "The Student of Prague" or "The Man Who Cheated Life" is a German German-language movie from 1926, so this one already had its 90th anniversary last year. The writer and director is Henrik Galeen and he also adapted the novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers for the big screen here. But despite the cast including pretty big names from that era like Conrad Veidt playing the title character or also Werner Krauss, it is not as well-known today as the Paul Wegener version that is already over a century old. But we talked about that one on a previous occasion and today the 1926 one is on the agenda. It runs for roughly 90 minutes in the version I watched and is of course a black-and-white silent film. I believe the acting is okay. The two actors I mentioned earlier are great together in their mirror scene and Veidt demonstrates throughout the entire film, but also especially in the scenes where he plays two very different characters why he is still considered one of the finest from the silent film era today. As for scene, the mirror scene once again needs to be mentioned and the occasional overacting there (very common for b&w silent films sadly) is not a problem in this one. The ending is also pretty great as Veidt's character tries to get away from his shadow, but there it needs to be said that the exact ending is not good at all and with this I mean the (almost) very last shot, namely when we see the protagonist die from a bullet he fired into his shadow. It just did not make any sense. Either the shadow should be gone or he should still be there as he always was antagonizing the central character. That's what I thought at least. The final shot of the grave is so-so. Not too inspired really.
And all in all, I was relatively underwhelmed here. Apart from the occasionally solid moments I already mentioned the film was not really interesting for the most part. This especially refers to the part with the romance / female main character which I thought was entirely forgettable. It's not on a level where it destroys this 1.5-hour movie, but it just drags a whole lot. Also I really wished Krauss had more screen time. Or they could have elaborated on him more. Who is he? Why does he want to do what he does? What does he gain from it? Why does he disappear so quickly? Where does he come from? etc. It all felt a bit unrefined at times. I have not read the novel I mentioned earlier, so not sure if Galeen or Ewers is the one to blame. I can only say that the eventual outcome of this movie is not really a success. Of course, more intertitles would have helped as well. Gotta give it a thumbs-down and I suggest you watch something else instead.
And all in all, I was relatively underwhelmed here. Apart from the occasionally solid moments I already mentioned the film was not really interesting for the most part. This especially refers to the part with the romance / female main character which I thought was entirely forgettable. It's not on a level where it destroys this 1.5-hour movie, but it just drags a whole lot. Also I really wished Krauss had more screen time. Or they could have elaborated on him more. Who is he? Why does he want to do what he does? What does he gain from it? Why does he disappear so quickly? Where does he come from? etc. It all felt a bit unrefined at times. I have not read the novel I mentioned earlier, so not sure if Galeen or Ewers is the one to blame. I can only say that the eventual outcome of this movie is not really a success. Of course, more intertitles would have helped as well. Gotta give it a thumbs-down and I suggest you watch something else instead.