Power (1934) User Reviews

A thin line of antisemitism

[jshoaf · 29 July 2004]

I watched this movie (a bad copy, with almost inaudible sound) absolutely spellbound, because of Conrad Veidt's performance. It is also fascinating because it was made as a voice against German antisemitism (one of the first bits of dialogue in the film is along the lines of "But it's 1730! anti-Jewish sentiment is a thing of the past!" "No, my friend, they will be against us in 1830, and in 1930, too"). However, there was a lot of trouble getting it to open in NYC because in America it was perceived as antisemitic. (I got this from John Soister's book on Veidt). It was hard to get a Jewish character on film in the 1930s who was both recognizably "Jewish" and not a stereotype. In 1940 the Germans made a film of the same book which made Veidt's elegant Jewish martyr into an elegant Jewish monster.

The plot is not new. It's similar to Musset's Lorenzaccio or Victor Hugo's Le Roi S'Amuse (Verdi's Rigoletto), I think: a sexually rapacious prince is served by a man he despises, up to the moment when the prince's lust and cruelty make the "best friend" into a mortal enemy. Frank Vosper is interesting as the prince in this movie, a man who at the beginning has a few noble impulses but who quickly degenerates into drunken cruelty and lecherousness. Benita Hume is also pretty cool as his decadent wife, who encourages his liaisons.

Veidt's role, Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, is however completely absorbing. His character is also a sensualist. He kisses everybody on the face or mouth--rabbis, his mother, his daughter--except for the woman he falls in love with. He loves luxury and enjoys beautiful clothes and presiding over a ball, and finding a new female tidbit for his prince to deflower. He seems to fantasize about knocking down the walls around the ghetto where he grew up, but his power is in fact a bit shaky; his service to the Jews seems to consist mostly in not denying he is Jewish. When he finally puts himself on the line to save an innocent Jew, it turns out to be a bad move--the prince wants vengeance on him for this concession. As Veidt's character confronts these disappointments, we see the man emerging from the courtier, and it's a wonderful transformation.

There is an odd plot twist, in which Oppenheimer learns that his biological father was a Gentile. Supposedly this makes him not Jewish. However, since Jewishness is reckoned by the mother, this makes no sense. Either his mother is a Gentile (not clear from the film) and the Jews would not consider him truly Jewish even if his father was the virtuous Jew Oppenheimer, or else she is a Jewess and our hero is thereby Jewish no matter who fathered him. The idea that he chooses to be a Jew feeds into the final scenes, and is relevant to Veidt's own life (apparently, though he was not Jewish at all, he insisted on stating that he was Jewish to the German authorities).

Although the plot is messy and a wee bit incoherent, the performances are beautiful and this is worth a look.

Historical value!

[philjeudy · 1/10 · 28 June 2020]

A few years later, the Jew Suss by Halan was giving its own perception of this historical fact for the purpose of Nazi propaganda. Yet, in 1934, Conrad Veidt and director Lothar Mendes escaped from Germany for the US and both participated to this well filmed movie that had a sort of Hollywood twich of the story of Josef Oppenheimer.

Watch this film and watch it again.

[anches-725-976306 · 9/10 · 9 June 2012]

My copy of Jew Suss is exceptionally bad, being an ageing VHS recording with poor image and sound but nevertheless this is a film worth repeated viewing. I wonder which other countries in the 1930s would have had the confidence to film such a controversial story. Jew Suss, on the surface, is a call to oppose the growth of anti-semitism but the hero of the film is no likable chap, he is a ruthless exploiter, a womaniser, a procurer of women-and a father and a son with a tender side to his nature. He despises his master, the Duke and as much as Suss is in the Duke's power, so is the opposite the case. The only person Suss fears is the Rabbi Gabriel who one can call, perhaps,his conscience or at least the one means whereby Suss is kept connected to the reality of the world in which he lives. It is Gabriel who reminds Suss to visit his mother and his child and it is during these visits that we see his tenderness. Apart from anything else, though, the key to the character of Suss is that, good or bad, he is true to himself and his principles and it is this which finally brings about his downfall. He would only have to declare himself a Christian (and in the book this is what his cousin has already done) for all to be forgiven but he will not do it, even though a rather dubious plot device would make this the obvious thing to do. I find without exception that all performances in this film are excellent.

Positive propaganda counters a Nazi agenda

[melvelvit-1 · 8/10 · 21 April 2015]

German financier Josef Süss Oppenheimer vowed to attain power at any cost in order to help his brethren in the Jewish ghetto of Württemberg and his friendship with Field Marshall Karl Alexander pays off when the war hero inherits a Duchy. Süss becomes the unscrupulous Duke's Minister of Finance and is able to build schools and hospitals for his people but the beginning of the end comes when the lecherous Duke tries to rape Süss' daughter and she commits suicide. Süss concocts a brilliant plan for revenge but it kills the Duke and the financier's arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for having sex with Gentile women, an old law that hadn't been enforced for hundreds of years. He's offered an out if he converts to Christianity and he'd kept the fact his father was Christian a secret ...but will Süss save himself?

Süss is warned early on not to underestimate anti-Semitism which was "here in 1430 and will be here in 1930" so it's easy to see Lothar Mendes' elaborate historical biography as "positive propaganda", a response to the rise of Hitler and the closing epilogue asks for an end to prejudice, hoping it "falls like the Walls of Jerico and people can live as one." (yeah, tell that to ISIS) Here, Süss is portrayed as a philanthropic opportunist foolish enough to think he could harness evil for the greater good and the opulence of the eighteenth century aristocracy is vividly contrasted with the poverty of the Jewish ghetto by German émigré Mendes. Conrad Veidt's tormented martyr, guilty only of being too smart for his own good in a bad world, recalls the actor's THE MAN WHO LAUGHS and is positively riveting. Cedric Hardwicke's Rabbi Gabriel is the financier's solemn moral conscience and Benita Hume (a Mrs. George Sanders) is also very good as the "let them eat cake" Duchess. The U.S. title was POWER and the adult, sexually frank narrative must have been trimmed quite a bit for its release here.

A Sympathetic adaptation

[simonstudios · 4 August 2001]

This is actually a very sympathetic adaptation of the original novel by Leon Feuchtwanger (who was himself Jewish), and should not be confused with the Nazi travesty of 1940, which was a crude, anti-semitic propaganda vehicle.

A masterful performance which you may never forget.

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 31 May 2019]

Like many classic movie fans, I first became familiar with Conrad veidt by seeing him in the variety of Nazi villains he played during the 1940s. Two Humphrey Bogart films in particular, "All Through the Night" and "Casablanca" of course typecast him as the Sinister German whose brutality is hidden by an aura of sophistication and class. Fantasy film fans remember him as the evil assistant to the sultan in "The Thief of Bagdad". Historically, he is remembered for helping his Jewish wife escaped Nazi Germany, first to England and then to the United States. As a silent German film actor, he became immortal in "The Cabinet of Caligari". One of the first films he made in England after escaping the rise of the Nazi party in Germany is this incredibly bold look how power corrupts and how one's own identity makes or breaks one's destiny.

With a voice and stature like his, Conrad Veidt was never going to be a romantic hero. The sharpness of his long face is similar to John Carradine, Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, which means that he would mainly be cast as villains. Is his character here a villain? That is up to the viewer to decide because certainly he is a libertine in his lifestyle, craving power and status and the desire to get out of the Jewish ghetto in 18th century Germany. With his intelligence, he becomes the assistant to a powerful duke, basically controlling the finances and with the duke's approval, reporting to nobody. Veidt obviously longs to tear down the walls of the ghetto where he grew up, but when he all of a sudden learns that what he believed his heritage to be is not so (thanks to a touching but brief visit with his mother), his motivations change and his obsession with power grows. Within a short period of time after this, everything in his career grows in his favor but his personal life caves in, especially concerning a young daughter that nobody in his inner circle knew that he had. This causes him to seek revenge and much of his character is revealed in a very haunting scene where he tortures the man who victimized her.

My one issue in getting into the film is that I was so entranced by the opulence of the scenery and costumes that I had a difficult time at first figuring out who was who and how they were all inter involved. Veidt's character has so many women in his life that a sensible viewer may question how a man like that ends up with so many lovers. I will admit there is charm in his power even if his physical demeanor and manner is often harsh in its appearance. Irregardless of that, he gives a powerful performance that is beyond theatrical and certainly surpasses anything that George Arliss was doing at the same time. Had this been an American film with better publicity and perhaps less of a radical message attached, Veidt would have been pushed for an Oscar nomination. The finale is unforgettable, and one that is chilling and mysterious. It is not surprising to learn that this story has influenced opera writers as it certainly has that feeling even without the music.