REMARKABLE FILM

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1935, Page 20 (Supplement)

REMARKABLE FILM

THE old and the young king. NAZI PICTURE IN ENGLAND. The most remarkable film made in Germany under the Nazi regime is now being screened in England. ' This is “The Old and the Young King,” with Emil Jannings, too long eclipsed, making a smashing return to popularity in the role of the tyrannical old FrederickWilliam I of Prussia. “The Old and the Young King” is almost entirely authentic, but could not have been more highly flavoured with Hitlerite , propaganda. if it had been pure ■ fiction. t We meet the old King—narrow, brusque, uncultured, rather stupid, reviewing his army and slaving at the machinery of State with the passion of a small boy playing with mechanical toys, playing practical jokes, boisterously enjoying himself with his regiment of seven-footers (one in the film is actually Bft. Tin.) and drilling his family like Grenadiers. His son, Frederick, loves books, music and the arts, habitually speaks French, detests the army arid the dull routine of government. Humiliated by his father, who is represented in the film as gruffly affectionate, but actually hated his son, if contemporary observers are to be trusted, Frederick plans to run away to England. A gallant ‘young officer friend, Lieutenant Katte, helps him. The King learns of the plot and proposes to execute his son as a. traitor. Instead, he has the boy’s best friend, Katte, beheaded before his eyes, by way of teaching him to appreciate the pleasures and duties of statecraft.

It is a matter of history ’ that this improbable plan worked. 1 Frederick submits and, taking the lesson to heart, throws himself into the brilliant career that wins him the title of “the Great.” A powerful, flawlessly-acted story, made doubly interesting and significant by its glorification of iron military discipline and Prussian ruthlessness.

“My father murdered my best friend!” cries the embittered Prince. “A king does not murder,” replies a courtier in effect. “The ruler’s will is law, arid whoever' offers resistance must be removed.”