As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been watching old mystery movies, of which a surprising number can be found posted on YouTube. This is, I freely admit, an exercise in pure escapism. I can’t watch new movies these days; they’re more moralistic than Victorian stage plays – and the morality is wrong. Old movies remind me of the world we threw away in the 1960s. I’m more at home there.
Last night I caught the movie Svengali (1931), which I remember used to show up on TV a lot when I was a kid. That film is only the most famous of a number of dramatic adaptations of the novel Trilby, by the English/French artist and author George du Maurier (grandfather of Daphne du Maurier, who wrote The Birds). I haven’t read the book (I’m thinking about it; I can probably find a free digital version), but according to Wikipedia, the Trilby/Svengali narrative forms only a small part of the novel. The novel is largely an evocation of du Maurier’s own youth as a struggling artist in Paris in the 1850s. The book was very influential – many of our conceptions of “bohemian” life in Paris, even today, are based on it.
Trilby O’Farrell is a half-Irish artist’s model in Paris, a free spirit. The young artist “little Billee” (inseparable from his friends Taffy and Laird, whose gorgeous whiskers provide much of the movie’s visual charm) falls in love with her. But she also comes to the attention of Svengali, the Jewish mesmerist who recognizes that she has a beautiful – though untrained – voice. He hypnotizes her, making her into a stellar concert artist. (The Victorians had excessive ideas about the power of hypnosis.) When she and Billee fall out, Svengali takes the opportunity to put her under a permanent spell. He fakes her suicide, spirits her out of Paris, and embarks on a concert career. Before long, “Mdme. Svengali” is the toast of Europe. By the time Billee finds her again, she’s lost beyond recall.
The movie is really a vehicle for its star John Barrymore, whose intense gaze (emphasized by makeup) and theatrical acting style suit the character perfectly. (The costumers also do a good job of making him look much taller than he really was.) The acting in general is the sort you see in early sound films – the actors are still moving slow and holding their expressions for the camera, waiting for a cue card. The potential of snappy dialogue and throw-away lines hasn’t been discovered yet. Some of the cinematography is very effective, though. There’s a wonderful scene where Svengali takes control of Trilby from a distance. An intense shot of Barrymore’s burning eyes cuts to a moving shot that travels over the roofs of Paris, into Trilby’s chamber window. The age of the technology shows, but it was impressive special effects for the time.
You may be aware, even in these debased times, that there’s a kind of hat called a “trilby.” It was named after the character in the book; illustrations and stage costumes put her in this hat – basically a fedora with a stingy brim. It became very fashionable for both men and women, and had a long run. Frank Sinatra was rarely without his trilby.
Oddly, Marian Marsh, who plays Trilby in the movie, never seems to wear a trilby (or else I glanced away and missed it). Seems like a lost opportunity, like doing Sherlock Holmes without the deerstalker cap. One of my main memories of Miss Marsh, from the many times I saw the film when I was a kid (it always seemed to show up on some local station two or three times a year), was her hair. Not as she originally appears, in a sort of Dutch Boy wig that hasn’t aged well, but as it looks during her first big concert scene. It’s curly, and it hangs to her shoulders. I remember saying to my brothers, way back then, that she “looked like a cocker spaniel.” (At the time, girls wore their hair straight, sometimes ironing it for effect.)
I remember this keenly because – in a small irony only important to me – just a few years later, in college, I fell in love with a girl whose hair looked exactly like Trilby’s concert hair (styles had changed), and it didn’t seem funny to me at all anymore. Makes watching it bittersweet, even now.
