User Reviews

"The Wandering Jew", or "The Life Story of Theodore Herzl", is a propagandized biography of the Austrian who is considered the founder of Zionism -- the political movement which resulted in the creation of the country Israel in what was Palestine. Mr. Herzl's movement was successful, of course; in 1948, following World War II, the nation of Israel was returned to existence.

This film clearly considers the movement to be God's will.

If the restoration of Israel was divinely inspired, the film certainly isn't -- it's relatively unexciting. More interesting is the history of discrimination and persecution of the Jewish people; countered by their determination, and vision. There are many remarkable intertitles, which seem as if they could have been written decades later. For example, one reads: "The holocaust of persecution. An era of gruesome carnage and massacre of Jews unparalleled since the persecution of the Christians by the Romans. Christendom, appalled at the fanatical barbarity…"

Father Rudolph Schildkraut (as "The Wandering Jew") and son Joseph Schildkraut appear intermittently; the younger Schildkraut went from this appearance to US stardom in "Orphans of the Storm" (1921), and beyond. "The Wandering Jew" seems to be differ from the title character, perhaps he is a Moses type; it's a confusing, and possibly unflattering, character.

Ernst Bath staidly plays Herzl.

Camera movement is minimal.

**** Theodor Herzl (2/11/21) Otto Kreisler ~ Ernst Bath, Rudolph Schildkraut, Joseph Schildkraut

This biopic of the life of Thedore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, is an earnest movie and shows the influences that caused him to seek a renewed homeland for Jews in what is now Israel. The movie spends, properly enough, a lot of screen time demonstrating anti-semitism in forms from accusations of well-poisoning to the Inquisition to the Dreyfus Case to demonstrate why Jews needed their own country.

However, the net thrust of the movie is on the order of preaching to the converted. The static camera shots, the story told through title cards, and old-fashioned techniques -- including antiquated Magic Lantern method of showing Herzl's thoughts in a small rectangle in the upper right-hand corner of the screen -- work against making this a good movie to show to Gentiles to bring them to the cause of supporting Zionism; and the acting is overly large and stagy.