Firstly, this is nothing like SVENGALI. Apart from the same cast and art director, this is completely different. Secondly it's really rather dull.
Besides a cracking episode of ANGEL (Waiting in the Wings), the most similar story to this is the section in the 1940 version of WATERLOO BRIDGE where Vivienne Leigh is a struggling ballerina bullied by Mdm. Olga. Here John Barrymore does a pretty decent job of playing the role Mara Ouspenskaya did as the tyrannical principal of a ballet troupe. The problem is that in WATERLOO BRIDGE that was a ten minute section of the film - in this, that's all the film is. There's just not enough story to fill out an hour and a half.
Crippled John Barrymore vicariously lives out his own dream of being a great dancer through a young man he discovers. He is so manically driven that he won't let anything, including this dancer falling in love, deviate him from his plan for him to be the world's greatest ballet dancer. If this young dancer or the girl he loves were in any way interesting characters this might itself be an interesting film but it transpires that they are Hollywood's dullest couple. You simply couldn't care less about them so just want this tedium to end (possibly to then go and search out that old episode of ANGEL?)
It's no surprise that this picture performed so badly at the box office. It was rushed into production following the moderate success of SVENGALI a few months earlier and you can tell it's a rush job. Warners just wanted to cash in by making something which looked, as least in terms of visuals, the same. Whereas SVENGALI had an annoyingly stupid story with lazy direction, this was directed a little better but didn't even have a story.
Besides a cracking episode of ANGEL (Waiting in the Wings), the most similar story to this is the section in the 1940 version of WATERLOO BRIDGE where Vivienne Leigh is a struggling ballerina bullied by Mdm. Olga. Here John Barrymore does a pretty decent job of playing the role Mara Ouspenskaya did as the tyrannical principal of a ballet troupe. The problem is that in WATERLOO BRIDGE that was a ten minute section of the film - in this, that's all the film is. There's just not enough story to fill out an hour and a half.
Crippled John Barrymore vicariously lives out his own dream of being a great dancer through a young man he discovers. He is so manically driven that he won't let anything, including this dancer falling in love, deviate him from his plan for him to be the world's greatest ballet dancer. If this young dancer or the girl he loves were in any way interesting characters this might itself be an interesting film but it transpires that they are Hollywood's dullest couple. You simply couldn't care less about them so just want this tedium to end (possibly to then go and search out that old episode of ANGEL?)
It's no surprise that this picture performed so badly at the box office. It was rushed into production following the moderate success of SVENGALI a few months earlier and you can tell it's a rush job. Warners just wanted to cash in by making something which looked, as least in terms of visuals, the same. Whereas SVENGALI had an annoyingly stupid story with lazy direction, this was directed a little better but didn't even have a story.