Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Student of Prague (1913)

Balduin the student is the toast of Prague, but is despondent over being broke. A not-so-chance encounter with Satan, disguised as Scapinelli, results in a deal for one-hundred thousand pieces of gold in exchange for the use of whatever he should desire in Balduin’s apartment. Scapinelli lays claim to the foolish student’s soul — represented by his corporeal mirror reflection — in typical satanic sneakiness.

Balduin is endulging his fascination with the countess Margit, but is unnerved by the reappearance of his animate double and the indignance of the Margit’s betrothed, her cousin (sick!), the baron Waldis-Schwarzenberg. Challenged to a sword duel, Balduin is compelled to spare his rival, but is undone by the killing of the baron by his ghostly doppelganger.

Margit refuses to see Balduin after her fiancé’s death, but is swayed when he steals into her house. All their reconciliation is unravelled when she discovers that he no longer has a mirror reflection — and it appears suddenly in the room. Whereever Balduin flees he is intercepted by his devilish double. The spectral chase is culminated in the ultimate triumph of the impish Scapinelli.

Director Hanns Heinz Ewers’s staging is distractingly clumsy in places, with characters lurking aimlessly and inexplicably unseen in the background of shots. Paul Wegener’s acting is peppered with the archaic gesticulations and the mawkish expressions of a stage ham. And John Gottowt’s Scapinelli is as self-conscious as any other Gottowt performance. But this early feature film was one of the earliest examples of was became known as the German Expressionist movement in motion pictures, and maintains a marginal degree of cinematic importance as such.

— Carl Bennett

This PAL DVD edition has been mastered from the restoration version of the film that utilized a number of 35mm prints, including the 1926 German rerelease version, with inserts from a good 16mm reduction print. The results still include dust, a moderate amount of speckling, some filmbase scuffing, and other minor print flaws.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed by Josef Weiss, arranged and performed on piano by Mark Pogolski [reconstruction version], and a music score composed by Josef Weiss, arranged by Bernd Thewes and performed by the Orchester Jakobsplatz München, conducted by Daniel Grossmann [English export version].

Supplemental material includes audio description (in German) of the reconstruction version; the USA release version of the film The Student of Prague; or, A Bargain with Satan (1913) [abridged] containing alternate footage and presented without musical accompaniment (46 minutes); Die ideale Gattin (1916) directed by Hanns Heinz Ewers and including cast member Ernst Lubitsch, presented without musical accompaniment (16 minutes); original script and documents (accessed by computer DVD-ROM features); and a 20-page insert booklet with writings by Hanns Heinz Ewers and by Stefan Drössler.

This is our recommended home video edition of the film. After years of enduring the crappy Alpha Video edition noted below, this edition is a true pleasure to watch. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 PAL DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 PAL DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

The film is accompanied by a music score by Christopher Congdon.

Even sight unseen, we recommend this edition over the Alpha Video edition noted below.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .

Alpha Video scored a minor coup by being the first to release this film in an American DVD home video edition. However, this disc appears to have been mastered from a VHS videotape copy edition, prepared from what appears to be a good 8mm reduction print, rendering a disc of poor visual quality. The low resolution of the VHS video master further degenerates the lack of fine image details in the already subpar source material, which has the usual problems of poorly-manufactured reduction prints: contrasty greytones with loss of highlight details and with murky, plugged-up shadows. The print is dusty and spliced in a few places. The moving image, nonetheless, remains of just-sufficient quality to follow the action and (occasionally) see the shadings of a subtle facial expression. Alpha Video has also provided new English language intertitles and insert shots of letters.

The new synthesizer musical accompaniment by Paul David Bergel does a passable job of emulating a pipe organ, and strives to create an eerie atmosphere. But it has also received some criticism for being amateurish, repetitious and unpleasant. However, any original accompaniment is at least a notch better than unrelated canned music assembled only for the sake of filling silence. At least Alpha Video has seen fit to expend some money for an original score to accompany the film despite the disc’s low cost.

Not at all recommended, look instead for the Region-Free edition from Edition Filmmuseum noted above.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .

Other GERMAN FILMS of the silent era available on home video.

Other HORROR FILMS of the silent era available on home video.