khsooners This is definitely one one the best pre-WWI movies! Still, if you are looking for the typical German expressionism, you will not see a lot of this. The movie is great in its use of the Prague locations (remember- those were still the days of Austria-Hungary). You see some of the city sights and also the famous Jewish cemetery but not in a tourist fashion, it all serves the romantic atmosphere of the movie: romantic in the fashion of Hoffmann and the German doppelgänger idea. Paul Wegener is far away from a modern day movie star, but he was one of the top German theater actors of the days. He fully embraced the concept of movies and even directed some. The author Hanns Heinz Ewers produced some dangerous Nazi books later on, but this one is a major achievement.

InjunNose Predating the German Expressionist movement in film (predating even World War I), this is the granddaddy of them all: the very first full-length horror movie. Being the first, we do not demand perfection from it; this film is as raw as William Burroughs's debut novel "Junky" or the first Stooges album, and suitably so. But the viewer will be pleasantly surprised that "The Student of Prague" still packs a punch after more than a century. From Paul Wegener's haunted, compelling performance as Balduin to the imposing backdrop of Prague with its spectral spires, there is much to appreciate in this film...and on its own terms, not just in its perceptible influence on numerous later productions. (Those who have seen "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", however, will note the visual debt that film's title villain owes to Scapinelli, the leering, top-hatted sorcerer portrayed by John Gottowt in "The Student of Prague".) A must-see for all students of film history.

Rich Drezen (Drezzilla) I bought this yesterday on DVD and watched it immediately upon getting home. I liked the concept of the picture, but I got lost a few times in between certain title cards. It's a movie that you would have to see more than once to understand because if you don't pay close attention to it throughout the whole picture, you'll be completely lost. This is true about many German expressionist films, and as primitive as this is in expressionist cinema, it counts. The print on the DVD from Alpha video a little dark, but decent. This is a 1913 motion picture we're talking' here! And a feature film at that. If you like an organ music setting for silent films, then you will be pleased with how this film was assembled for DVD. As far as the story goes, it's got an interesting concept; you have a normal guy at a prep school, some magician comes along and puts a spell on him, and then all of a sudden the guy's being chased by his own reflection! I don't know whether or not it was done with a split screen format or not because, again, this film was made in an age where very little is known about such early feature films. But it's only 41 minutes long, and if I can sit through it, anyone can.

Elliot-10 If "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is the father of all horror films (and of German expressionist cinema), this pre-WWI film is the grandfather. The titular student, starving in an empty garret, makes a deal with the Devil-- the Devil gives him a bottomless sack of gold, in exchange for "anything in this room." The Devil chooses the student's reflection in his mirror. He walks off with the student's doppelganger, who commits crimes for which the student is blamed.The film is marred by some limitations arising out of the technically primitive state of 1913 filmmaking; the plot cries out for chiaroschuro effects, but the film is, of necessity, virtually all shot in shadowless daylight. But the scene where the reflection walks out of the mirror still packs a wallop.More interesting for the trends it fortells than for its own sake, The Student of Prague is still worthwhile.