User Reviews

This movie was the first of those made by Britain's number one stage actor, George Arliss, and it emerges as a somewhat disappointing effort, mainly due to Arliss himself who played the title role and undoubtedly ran rings around the movie's nominal director, James Young. I mean, put yourself in Young's place! Would you dare to tell Arliss that, in your opinion, Arliss was far too stage-oriented and was way overdoing his sinister portrait of the devil incarnate?

I mean, you can't have it both ways: Either Arliss is out of step or every other character in the movie's scenario needs to get wise and wake up to the devil's perfidy. A good kick in the pants would probably bring them all to their senses. But I prefer to think that Arliss was far too stagey rather than that everyone else in the cast was a complete idiot!

Arliss is way too smarmy. He way overdoes all his stage tricks, and what's worse, he positively delights in over-acting. The other players try to put on a brave show, but they are continually smothered by the grimacing antics of Arliss.

Mind you, the movie, now available on a good Alpha DVD, does have immense curiosity value, even though it does seem too long and tires our patience even at 57 minutes. In fact, this running time comes as a total surprise to me. Whilst actually looking at the DVD, I thought it ran close to a hundred minutes!

From the original ad campaign, "Here is a story mounted in settings and scenes of splendor and luxury. A story that is as old as yesterday; as true as today; and as new as tomorrow. A production of real mark and unexcelled distinction. As the central figure George Arliss is an unforgettable picture of fiendish, subtle, domineering and diabolic ingenuity; of cunning, sardonic and unrelenting resourcefulness. Yet he is the suave, charming, polished and artistic Devil."

This satiric drama based on the 1908 play by Ferenc Molnar that launched Arliss on Broadway and was used to entice him into his very first (of many) film. Earlier version were made by no less than Thomas Edison and D.W. Griffith! Original play title, "The Devil; A Comedy in Three Acts." In an interview from Motion Picture World, January, 1921, Mr. Arliss told reporters he decided to go into films after being impressed by the work of Charles Chaplin. The director then made a screen test to show Arliss how intimate the camera was and how it exaggerated gestures. Arliss said films would probably lead to better acting on the stage when actors could study their technique on the big screen.

Dr. Muller (Arliss), a friend to all, finds pleasure in turning the goodness in people to evil ends. He meets Marie Matin (Lucy Cotton) and her fiancé, George Roben (Roland Bottomley), while viewing a new painting, "The Martyr-Truth Crucified by Evil." Marie declares that the picture was wrong-evil could never triumph over truth-and though Muller says he agrees with her, he plots to prove otherwise. To this end, he entangles Marie with artist Paul de Veaux (Edmund Lowe), Georges's best friend, causing the latter's model, Mimi (Sylvia Breamer), to become jealous. Georges, believing that he is standing between Paul and Marie, releases Marie from her engagement. Marie finds Paul and Mimi alone together late one evening and turns back to Georges, whom she marries. This does not discourage Muller, who but for Marie's purity almost succeeds in his evil designs. WARNING PLOT SPOILER COMING: As a last resort, Muller lures Marie to his apartment to trick her. There in a moment of dramatic conflict, she prays for help; a vision of a shining cross appears; and Muller is consumed in flames. Note: This was also the first film for Fredric March's and Mrs. George Arliss.

Film historian William K. Everson wrote in his book on Silents that less than 25 features survive from 1921. This 1921 classic film once lost has recently been rediscovered and is now being restored by the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center where I work in Dayton, Ohio. We hope to start loaning it out to silent film festivals later in 2000.

It may be difficult to countenance now but there was a time when George Arliss was close to being the biggest film star in the world. This slightly stooped, perhaps not conventionally handsome, mature gentleman had spent years on the stage to tremendous acclaim and achieved the same in the early sound era of film. His great skill was a tremendous personal charisma that defied his actual appearance. When he is on screen there is little else that the viewer remembers - his precise diction and sheer presence dominate.

The Devil (1921) was Arliss' first film and though denied his superb voice, that presence so evident in his sound films of a decade later is ever present. As Dr. Mueller he puts a loving couple to a test of fidelity, slowly drawing them through deception and innuendo into compromising circumstances. It is this sly approach that gives Arliss the opportunity to show, through expression and mouthed dialogue his skills as a seducer.

I had assumed the title of the film was a metaphorical one, highlighting the devilish nature of the Arliss character, but in a final reckoning he is revealed to indeed be more than a lecherous fiend but at the very least a servant of the Dark One. The heroine is protected from his advance by a glowing cross and he is eventually seen to be defeated by the powers of light. The very essence of deux ex machina in a story that at least follows a logical path.

Even without a mustache, George Arliss is twirling it, intending to break up Roland Bottomley and Lucy Cotton. "Love is precious my dear", he repeats over and over. "Why wasted on someone you do not love?" He might as well have some sort of hypnotic device to make Cotton believe his words. His goal is to have her fall for Bottomley's friend, artist Edmund Lowe. With prosthetic teeth that are longer than his own and appearing to have rows of them, he definitely is like a vampire, surviving on making misery rather than blood.

Having spent his time on film as historical characters trying to bring lovers together more than changing history or creating art, Arliss really does look like the part of the devil in this. Certainly, he didn't do that as Disraeli, Alexander Hamilton, voltaire, Rothschild or Richileu, and even though he has the same scheming glint in his eye, his motives are quite the opposite. Lowe, the one with the mustache, is less of a mustache twirler than Arliss even though he's the scoundrel.

All eyes are on the veteran British actor, one of the first Academy Award Winning actors, making his film debut in his own play after a hugely successful stage career, and obviously enjoying chewing the scenery since he didn't have dialogue. This is delightfully campy and easy to get through because it's less than an hour, and the surviving print is quite good. Great visuals as well are another plus.

THE DEVIL (1921) [56:26]

George Arliss appeared in 6 silent films from 1921 through 1928. Of these only his first, THE DEVIL (1921- Pathe) is available on dvd and it is the only one he did not remake as a sound film. The others all survive in whole in archives the world over (Twenty Dollars a week (LOC); The Ruling Passion (Gosfilm, Moscow); The Man Who Played God (Gosfilm, Moscow); The Green Goddess (UCLA); Disraeli (Gosfim, Moscow)), but have never been released to the public on VHS or DVD. Arliss remade 5 of these as sound films, (DISRAELI, THE GREEN GODDESS, THE MAN WHO PLAYED GOD under their original titles, and TWENTY DOLLARS A WEEK as THE WORKING MAN and THE RULING PASSION as THE MILLIONAIRE), so we at least have surviving interpretations of the roles involved.

Mr. Arliss makes his first appearance in THE DEVIL 7 minutes into the production, with his back turned to the public. His slow turning around at over-hearing a bold statement by the leading lady is an effective introduction to his character. The film is all his. There is nothing interesting about the two couples, as characters or as actors, whose happiness he manipulates to destroy through innuendo and suggestion. Would that there were so we could care about the harm he is doing, but we don't. It's all his show and even without his eloquent voice, his facial expressions and polite mannerisms tell all we need to know. The others may over act or act badly, but Arliss is always spot on.

Mrs. Arliss (Florence) appears as the aunt of the leading lady and is quite prevalent - she appears in 14 scenes comprising 8 sequences. However, she has no "lines," so remains a background character.

At 56 minutes and 26 seconds, the film plays swiftly, albeit stage-bound as it needs be (Arliss played the role on stage in the nineteen oughts) and as a fantasy it is one-note and morally simplistic. This is one I would only recommend for fans of Mr. Arliss, who is a delight. (An interesting visual effect at the end has him turning more and more grotesque in a series of quick cuts until he is consumed by flames - supposedly this caused a few faint hearts to flutter with terror in audiences of the times.)

The dvd print is fuzzy and out of focus with occasinal frame jumps.

Yesterday I watched "The Devil" (1921) with George Arliss, Sylvia Breamer, Lucy Cotton, Edmund Lowe, Roland Bottomley, Florence Arliss, and others. Young Fredric March is in one of the crowd scenes, but I never spotted him. This was George Arliss' first film. The film is based on a satiric play written in 1908 by Ferenc Molnar, and which launched Arliss on Broadway. Arliss was approached about doing film in 1920, and had learned that movement and emoting were exaggerated by the camera on film, so needed to be subtler, and he thought that learning the film craft might make acting on stage a tad tidier, too, without the necessity of exaggerated limb movement. One of the things that really stood out in the film, especially near the beginning of the film, was Arliss' own sense of posturing his body, much like one might on stage, but it was a precision posturing. Nevertheless, it wasn't anywhere near as natural as what one might see today, but not in any way off-putting, either. Arliss seems as natural as anyone in that era, and he has a commanding presence at all times! He has the definition of charisma at any time when the camera is on him.

This one concerns a kind of bet that is made: while viewing a painting called "The Martyr - Truth Crucified by Evil" Lucy Cotton (playing Marie) says that that title is an impossibility, that Truth cannot be crucified by Evil; Arliss (playing a man called Dr. Müller, though we know he is really the devil himself!), walking with Cotton, says she's probably correct, but he then goes about trying to prove that, yes, Evil can indeed make a martyr out of Truth! The essence of the plot is that Roland Bottomley (playing Georges), who is engaged to Marie, and whose best friend, artist Edmund Lowe (playing Paul de Veaux), who is loved by Sylvia Breamer (playing Mimi, the model), are connived by Arliss into near infidelity. In the end, a prayer leads to the devil being consumed by flames. All of this must have been quite fascinating to watch in 1921, because it is still a fascinating relic of what the stage must have been like at the turn of the twentieth century. The camera does a very nice job of moving the personalities around on film, but the story is rather stage bound. The sets are gorgeous, however, and they still play well to a modern audience. Today's audiences will have difficulty with the satiric content, and possibly the content in general, but the film graphically illustrates the differences in taste between generations that are one hundred years apart and more.

I enjoyed the film, I must admit, as much because George Arliss is one of my favorite actors, and every one of his films has a certain kind of dénouement that points, not so much a moral, rather a kind of necessary axiomatic goodness that needs to come from human beings towards each other - and which WILL come, even in the face of evil or stupidity. A live and let live kind of plot never exists in Arliss. Even his historical pieces are loaded with plot that leads us on to a certain kind of conclusion. I think that's why I find Arliss truly interesting, never dull. He's never plebeian, either, but magisterial (even in films like "Old English" or "The Guv'nor"), and his movies represent a kind of film, if not genre, that I think is nearly unique in the English speaking film.

My copy of the film is from Alpha. You never know what you're going to get for the $5-$8 Alpha films. This one is B-. The picture quality is okay, never perfect, but certainly very, very watchable! It's not blurry or white, but the sharpness is never as good as many. The score used is just okay. It's classical music that sort of fits, but... Would love to see this pristinely released with a new music score. The film was thought lost for decades, then re-discovered in the late 1990's, then shown in 2000 at a film festival. Nearly everybody seems to be releasing this film on the grey market, but it was made the year before 1922, so it shouldn't have any copyright problems.