Rating: 
Summary: Look Into My Eyes...
Review: At first glance, SVENGALI (John Barrymore) is just a slimy, heartless music instructor, taking advantage of the folly of his female students (victims). On closer inspection, he is a demonic presence, mesmerizing those he desires with those hideous eyes of his! Trilby (Marian Marsh) is a beautiful young model, who captivates SVENGALI and drives him to obsession. He simply must possess her and sets out to do so by hypnotizing her (in the guise of a headache cure). The various shots of SVENGALI's eyes are unforgettable. In them we see an evil that is otherwise hidden deep in SVENGALI's heart. While others think of him as a harmless buffoon, we know what he REALLY is, as well as what he's really capable of. Trilby is drawn into those eyes, becoming his slave. Though she becomes a singing sensation, we realize that she is only a puppet for her new master, a caged bird chirping for her captor. Her life is reduced to SVENGALI. This is a horror story about domination, submission, and death. Eerie and disturbing, SVENGALI is a must-see classic. Highly recommended...
Rating: 
Summary: AN INTERESTING ANTIQUE.
Review: For those who are interested to catch a glimpse of the legendary John Barrymore - before he basically became a parody - this film from 1931 is a good choice. In the title role, Barrymore is still quite mesmorising and the photography is interesting. Svengali, of course is that immortal teacher of female singers who can work wonders via his hypnotic glare: Trilby is his newest conquest: she becomes the toast of Europe as Madame Svengali, the singer - all because of his supernatural powers. Marian Marsh makes a visually perfect Trilby but her acting isn't nearly on a par with her benefactor - but then few actresses could really do much with such a mealy, whacko role. Barney McGill's inspired photography won him an AA nomination. Based upon the nearly immortal novel by George Du Maurier, this was - rather unbelievably - first filmed in 1896 (!) by Biograph as TRILBY AND LITTLE BILLEE. Later, in 1915 Equitable filmed the story with Clara Kimball Young and Wilton Lackaye (what a name!) : it was directed by Maurice Tourneur.
Rating:
Summary: AN INTERESTING ANTIQUE.
Review: For those who are interested to catch a glimpse of the legendary John Barrymore - before he basically became a parody - this film from 1931 is a good choice. In the title role, Barrymore is still quite mesmorising and the photography is interesting. Svengali, of course is that immortal teacher of female singers who can work wonders via his hypnotic glare: Trilby is his newest conquest: she becomes the toast of Europe as Madame Svengali, the singer - all because of his supernatural powers. Marian Marsh makes a visually perfect Trilby but her acting isn't nearly on a par with her benefactor - but then few actresses could really do much with such a mealy, whacko role. Barney McGill's inspired photography won him an AA nomination. Based upon the nearly immortal novel by George Du Maurier, this was - rather unbelievably - first filmed in 1896 (!) by Biograph as TRILBY AND LITTLE BILLEE. Later, in 1915 Equitable filmed the story with Clara Kimball Young and Wilton Lackaye (what a name!) : it was directed by Maurice Tourneur.
Rating:
Summary: Fever Dream on Celluloid
Review: I'd never even heard of this film till it showed up one day on early morning television. It's a trip! One of its more distinguishing features is the stylized set design, whereby all the houses look as if they came straight from one of those old Disney films--"Pinocchio", perhaps--with crooked roofs and sloped ceilings and such. The centerpiece of this fever-dream-on-celluloid is a weird Bela Lugosi-ish performance from the great John Barrymore. Whenever Svengali hypnotizes a beautiful young woman to think only of him (to the exclusion of everything--and everybody--else), he turns into a glassy-eyed version of Lugosi's creepy "White Zombie" character. In that film, also made in the early 1930s, a magnetic gaze (and an odd hand gesture) was all it would take for Lugosi to coerce a Haitian town's zombie population to do his bidding. "Svengali" is more of a horror movie than a conventional literary adaptation (of George du Maurier's "Trilby"), but with a delightfully warped sense of humor. Archie Mayo also directed the excellent "Angel on My Shoulder" (1946), a breezy update of Goethe's "Faust", with Claude Rains as a suitably suave Satan and Paul Muni as Eddie Kagle, the thug who makes a deal with him.
Rating:
Summary: Fever Dream on Celluloid
Review: I'd never even heard of this film till it showed up one day on early morning television. It's a trip! One of its more distinguishing features is the stylized set design, whereby all the houses look as if they came straight from one of those old Disney films--"Pinocchio", perhaps--with crooked roofs and sloped ceilings and such. The centerpiece of this fever-dream-on-celluloid is a weird Bela Lugosi-ish performance from the great John Barrymore. Whenever Svengali hypnotizes a beautiful young woman to think only of him (to the exclusion of everything--and everybody--else), he turns into a glassy-eyed version of Lugosi's creepy "White Zombie" character. In that film, also made in the early 1930s, a magnetic gaze (and an odd hand gesture) was all it would take for Lugosi to coerce a Haitian town's zombie population to do his bidding. "Svengali" is more of a horror movie than a conventional literary adaptation (of George du Maurier's "Trilby"), but with a delightfully warped sense of humor. Archie Mayo also directed the excellent "Angel on My Shoulder" (1946), a breezy update of Goethe's "Faust", with Claude Rains as a suitably suave Satan and Paul Muni as Eddie Kagle, the thug who makes a deal with him.
Rating:
Summary: Barrymore's best
Review: John Barrymore gives a performance for the ages as the title character. His walk, body language, makeup and voice are outstanding and he makes the mesmerist a very tragic character.
The overlooked Archie Mayo does a great directing job for this early sound film and the very green Marion Marsh, helped by Barrymore, is the doomed Trilby. This is Barrymores's greatest hour.
Rating: 
Summary: Visually Intriguing
Review: John Barrymore stars as a composer and hypnotist who takes control of Marian Marsh through hypnosis and turns her into a great singer and his lover. Barrymore gives a striking performance as the sinister, yet humorous Svengali, sometimes a bit hammy but acting circles around the rest of the cast. The sets and photography are strange, yet stunning, creating an eerie, almost other world feel. There are a number of great camera shots, including a long shot that moves from Svengali's apartment to another building that must have been a real challenge technically back in 1931. It is a very talky film with little action, but the visual presentation of Barrymore and the sets helps to make up for it. It's not a great film, but it does leave an impression.
Rating:
Summary: Visually Intriguing
Review: John Barrymore stars as a composer and hypnotist who takes control of Marian Marsh through hypnosis and turns her into a great singer and his lover. Barrymore gives a striking performance as the sinister, yet humorous Svengali, sometimes a bit hammy but acting circles around the rest of the cast. The sets and photography are strange, yet stunning, creating an eerie, almost other world feel. There are a number of great camera shots, including a long shot that moves from Svengali's apartment to another building that must have been a real challenge technically back in 1931. It is a very talky film with little action, but the visual presentation of Barrymore and the sets helps to make up for it. It's not a great film, but it does leave an impression.
Rating:
Summary: A Barrymore Performance as Hypnotic as the Character
Review: John Barrymore was an authentic acting genius whose movie roles rarely allowed him full expression of his amazing gifts. This film is an exception, allowing Barrymore to escape typecasting as a handsome lover and indulge his love of the bizarre and the strange. His Svengali--charlatan, egotist, and genuinely sinister master of mesmerism--is by turns an object of humor and pathos, a character of his own kind of threadbare but powerful integrity, and one who has become the master of an "occult" art (hypnotism), or perhaps been mastered by it. To watch Barrymore in this film is to see an actor both immerse himself in a role and make it so totally, individually his own that actor and role are indistinguishable. His style is at once completely bizarre and totally believable, totally right. The stylized sets and photography contribute to the strange atmosphere of this classic film, and if a couple of the characters in the film are not so well-acted (especially by today's standards), this doesn't detract from Barrymore's astonishing performance, or from the impact of the film itself. A strange masterpiece that will have you "think only of Svengali...Svengali...Svengali!" END
Rating:
Summary: Under John Barrymore's spell
Review: Maestro Svengali (John Barrymore), professeur du chant, dwells in a shabby attic. His hair is greasy and his goatee split like a snake's tongue. But one indifferent "Ja, Liebchen, I know how you feel" is enough to bring women to throw themselves at his head. But heaven help those who fall for his flattery. He has no use for a burdensom appendage, and a gullible woman who throws herself in the Seine because of him grieves him not particularly: "Ah, that was a pity. She was very sweet - but a bad businesswoman. Tsk, tsk, tsk". The scene of action is Paris. The Paris of MOULIN ROUGE and LA BOHEME. Svengali's morning toilet is not too careful - he spits in a cuspidor - and the sight of a young briton taking a bath gives him the idea to play "God save the Queen" to make him stand up. Most of the time he grapples with the problem of how to pay his rent, but when his purse if filled he spruces himself up and goes to town, unaffected by the mockery of the passers-by. One day, Trilby (Marion Marsh), a young, coquettish painter's model bursts into this bachelor's topsy-tuvydom. Casually dressed in a gendarme's uniform and comfortable slippers she poses for all those Toulouse-Lautec-wannabes and falls in love with Billie (Bramwell Fletcher), the young briton who soon proposes to her. While Billie falls for her looks, her singing-voice attracts Svengali's attention. He recognizes her potential as primadonna and uses his hypnotic powers to clear her brain until she thinks nothing but: Svengali. He heals her headache but her pain goes directly in his heart. The next shot is famous: Svengali calls Trilby via long-distance-hypnosis: His eyes light up like electric bulbs, the camera moves from his pupils along the block of houses in Trilby's bedroom. She sleep-walks in his apartment. His powers are strong enough to transform he in a somnabulist, but to win her love... He obstructs her wedding: She feels guilty after Billie surprises her posing as life-model ("He saw me there, before all those men!"). Svengali lists her former lovers and appeals to her conscience: "You are good like a little bird, like a lark that must sing in the sunlight - but are you good enough to face Billie's mother?" and his cunning is crowned by success. Five years later, Trilby, now Madame Svengali is a famous primadonna who sends the audience into raptures. Svengali, bemedalled, and "La Svengali", loaden with jewels look very new-rich, but the glittering facade crumbles: Svengali's heart is failing, slowly he loses his grip on Trilby. In those moments she wakes up and greets her old friends as if nothing ever happened. Billie too is in the audience, Billie who still loves her...Svengali pulls himself together and Trilby is spellbound again. He showers her with presents, but she is unable to give him what he wants most - her love: "You are beautiful, my manufactured love, but it is only Svengali talking to himself". Two components contribute to make SVENGALI a classic: The famous surrealistic sets and John Barrymore's performance. One aspect of his performance is problematic: The protagonist in Du Mauriers novel was a Polish jew, and Barrymore, with his tog, his make-up and his thick german accent may look like a wildly racistic caricature for those who don't know him. But nothing could be further from the truth! He was such a good, open-minded man. His eye-twinkling charm enchants the viewer, and near the end his performance becomes nearly soul-stirring. This was probably his sexiest performance. His biographer Margot Peters found him the personification of seductive guile - Lucifer as serpent, and was remembered of a tomcat watching a mousehole. Barrymore's fourth wife fell so completely in love with him after watching this film, that she chased him by train, plane and even radio-address until he finally said: "yes".
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