Pluskylang Great Film overall

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

JohnHowardReid In this amazing Warner Brothers production, it's hard to go past John Barrymore's delightfully full-blooded performance as the enigmatic Svengali, but Marian Marsh succeeds in doing just that with her compellingly unaffected, fascinatingly natural Trilby. Not only does she act the pants off the rest of the scene-chewing cast (led by the atrociously hammy Bramwell Fletcher), but she is more than a match for the glorious Barrymore himself. Even the great actor's copious bag of histrionic eye rollings, stompings and pregnant pauses, cannot compete with Marsh's entrancing charm and vivacity. Hers is a completely captivating Trilby. She has a lovely face too – superbly lit by ace cameraman Barney McGill – and her singing voice is exquisitely dubbed. Aside from Mr. Fletcher (who certainly looks the part, despite his atrocious verbal delivery), the other players are competent enough. Donald Crisp even affects a suitable Scottish accent. Of course, it's not all high melodrama. True to the 1894 novel, "Trilby" by George Louis De Maurier, there is plenty of intentional amusement, and most of this still comes across as successfully as the more dramatic scenes. In fact, the film's most famous episode – the celebrated hypnosis from a distance sequence – when the camera pulls back from Svengali and goes shooting across the rooftops to Trilby's apartment – seems almost as wonderful today as when it first drew gasps of astonishment from contemporary critics and picturegoers. Svengali certainly rates as director Archie Mayo's most inventive production.

gavin6942 Through hypnotism and telepathic mind control, a sinister music maestro (John Barrymore) controls the singing voice, but not the heart, of Trilby O'Farrell, (Marian Marsh) the woman he loves.Amazingly, this film was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Art Direction by Polish-born Anton Grot, and one for Best Cinematography by Barney "Chick" McGill (who worked at Warner Brothers from 1927 to 1933 before dying prematurely at age 51). That is pretty impressive for what is basically a horror film. And while it has been remade many times, it seems the original has more or less been forgotten -- it deserves a deluxe release! Director Archie Mayo was quite prolific from the 1920s through the 1940s, and this has to be one of his better films, though "A Night in Casablanca" (1946) with the Marx Brothers is worth singling out.Barrymore is incredible, his Svengali being a very Rasputinesque figure that uses hypnotism for mind control... but he mixes obsession and love with a dangerous twist. I can see how this man has become a legend and his family has stayed at the top of Hollywood for generations.

Robert J. Maxwell There never was an historical figure named Svengali, nor a hypnotized Trilby on whom he worked his will. The novel was written in the late 1800s. The book was a big smash in those days, when people still read, so the name and the relationship became icons of vernacular culture.Barrymore is Svengali, a pianist and teacher of music, who lives in a decrepit boarding house in Paris with a couple of other half-starved artists. (The novel devoted a lot of time to a description of la vie Boheme on the Left Bank.) A young artist's model, Marian Marsh, falls in love with Billie (Fletcher) but falls under the hypnotic spell of the older Svengali. Well, it's more than hypnosis really. He can enter her head from across the city.Under his spell, Trilby becomes a famous soprano. Svengali fakes her death and whisks her off elsewhere. Svengali marries her. She becomes the toast of Europe with her soprano. The only thing that Svengali can't get past is her love for Billie. He has to hypnotize her to get her to cooperate in the boudoir and by the end, he's disgusted with himself for making love to a marionette. He longs for her love and gets it in the end, though it costs him dearly.There are a couple of good reasons for watching this old flick if the opportunity arises. For one thing, the direction, performances, and sets are pretty good for their time. In particular, a traveling shot across a miniature Paris is right out of German expressionism. And rooms are filled with dark, angular shadows.Then there's the way the story is shot. This was before the imposition of the infamous code, so there are scenes that wouldn't have made it past the censors a few years later. There's a semi-nude scene, for instance, which suggests that Trilby looks good all over.And then there's the dialog. Svengali has been described by his neighbors as "a Polish scavenger." Indeed, he's unkempt and clomps slowly about. I think he once played Rasputin, the Mad Monk. If he didn't, he should have. But, what with his hypnotic eyeballs, he has this power over women. When a rich woman enters his studio for her music lesson at the beginning, he asks, "What did we do last?" The woman replies, "Don't you remember?" And he says, "Ahh, yes, but I meant the music." The wealthy woman then tells him, "I worship you, Svengali. I have left my husband for good." And Svengali squints thoughtfully and says, "Yes, but how much did he leave YOU?" When he discovers that she came to him without a penny, he throws her out and she commits suicide. "Her body was found in the river!" Svengali: "Ah, that is impossible -- in this weather." Later, fighting Trilby's love for Billie, he dismisses Billie as "that stiff-necked Englander, the head of the Purity Brigade." Barrymore plays all this with a comic relish, like Richard III. He revels in his exercise of evil.Marian Marsh, on the other hand, is one of the most beautiful young woman to appear in the screen in the early 30s. She doesn't have Garbo's knowing languour, although she's equally attractive, but rather the winsome eagerness of a child. She's like a porcelain doll with perfect features and a smile that has the same effect on a viewer as Svengali's glowing eyeballs.I wonder how many of today's kids would recognize the name of Svengali. (Never mind Trilby.) He may be disappearing along with much of the rest of our shared data base in vernacular culture. I once asked my college class if they had heard of Sinbad the Sailor. Forget it.

bkoganbing A bit old fashioned, Svengali still holds the interest throughout because of its star the great John Barrymore. It's one of his best screen roles.Not noted for his personal hygiene, Svengali is a rogue of all trades, a teacher of music and singing, a good magician, and a master at hypnotism. Apparently only women seem to succumb to the mesmerizing however, or he prefers to use it on them only.He's not a man with too many scruples as we see when he casually tosses Carmel Myers aside after she leaves her husband for him. But when it comes to a new pupil, Trilby O'Farrel, it's not quite clear who the one is who is enslaving who.Tone deaf, but with a throat and palate Barrymore discovers could be the voice of a great singer, he weaves his greatest mesmerizing spell upon the unsuspecting Marian Marsh as Trilby. She becomes his greatest success, but he must never leave her side. He also with his abilities takes her away from struggling artist Bramwell Fletcher.Svengali received two Academy Award nominations, for Art Direction and Cinematography. John Barrymore did not receive one, a pity in my humble opinion. One person who really appreciated Barrymore's performance was his brother. You can clearly see traces of John's Svengali in Lionel Barrymore's Rasputin in Rasputin and the Empress.John Barrymore also got to work with Bramwell Fletcher in this who became his posthumous son-in-law. A few months after Barrymore died in 1942, Fletcher married Diana Barrymore for a few years. His character in the film Too Much, Too Soon about Diana Barrymore's tragic life is played by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.I wouldn't mind seeing an updated version of Svengali, perhaps one with a gay twist. Turn that one over in your minds. Until then this one will do nicely.