The Wandering Jew (I) (1933)
Fustian adaptation shows the strengths and weaknesses of it's makers.
16 January 2003
Maurice Elvey's second try at this three part barnstormer (Matheson Lang didn't get a jousting sequence) remains a Sunday School outing but the ingredients and his technical control of them, give it enduring interest.

Conrad Veidt's first English speaking outing has him more convincing than the British old hands, getting about in costume warehouse gear, though the familiar face players do well - Peggy Ashcroft, Francis L. Sulivan and Felix Aylmer.

Compare this with the soon to follow PRIVATE LIVES OF HENRY VIII and you have a snap shot of the problems of the native British film industry - competent, unadventurous, respectful and old fashioned.

It is a measure of Veidt and Elvey that they still manage to involve us in the totally bogus story of the Jew who cursed Christ and found himself stuck on earth till the Second Coming. We actually worry about Conrad's "Is my time not yet come."
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