Just perfect...

Absolutely Brilliant!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I'd always wanted to see this famous story, and the much-praised John Barrymore. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past all the outrageously bogus fake beards on everybody, plus the preposterous fake nose Svengali sports, the imitation Yiddish accent, the crude caricatures of the expostulating Italians and so on. Kinda wrecks it for us moderns who are used to decent production . Remember when Spencer Tracy refused to grow a stubble beard for"The Old Man and the Sea?" The director protested that hero was at sea without shaving for a week and had to grow a beard. Tracy said, "I'll ACT the beard." If only Barrymore had made the same choice.

It's been many years since I read DuMaurier's "Trilby." I was a young man them, probably much more impressionable than I am now. I didn't know that there had been a movie made based on the book – let alone several versions. When I came across the title on IMDb I read the summaries and comments on all of them. It seemed to me that only one came close to the book – this 1931 Warner Brothers film, named after the villain of the story. Comparing the casts, one also could come to the conclusion that this would be the best of the films.John Barrymore does an excellent job as "Svengali." Marian Marsh is very good as Trilby, and this is her first starring role after a few uncredited roles in films. The rest of the cast are fine in their roles. I did notice that the ending was different, if in the same vein.The film didn't seem to be as sinister as I recalled Svengali from the book. Perhaps the front of gentleness displayed by Barrymore here assuages somewhat the terror of his character's demonic side. I don't recall if his character had a gentle or sweet side in the book.The filmmakers did an excellent job in setting the story with the stark appearance of the lodgings and spacious empty hallways in the beginning. Once Trilby comes under Svengali's spell, it seems that the film moves very quickly to the end. I thought there was a little more to the intervening years in the book.This was a very good portrayal of one person controlling another, especially with dark powers. DuMaurier's villain's name soon transposed into common language. A manipulating person who seeks to control someone is referred to as a Svengali.

Through hypnotism and telepathic mind control, a sinister music maestro (John Barrymore) controls the singing voice, but not the heart, of Trilby O'Farrell, (Marian Marsh) the woman he loves.Amazingly, this film was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Art Direction by Polish-born Anton Grot, and one for Best Cinematography by Barney "Chick" McGill (who worked at Warner Brothers from 1927 to 1933 before dying prematurely at age 51). That is pretty impressive for what is basically a horror film. And while it has been remade many times, it seems the original has more or less been forgotten -- it deserves a deluxe release! Director Archie Mayo was quite prolific from the 1920s through the 1940s, and this has to be one of his better films, though "A Night in Casablanca" (1946) with the Marx Brothers is worth singling out.Barrymore is incredible, his Svengali being a very Rasputinesque figure that uses hypnotism for mind control... but he mixes obsession and love with a dangerous twist. I can see how this man has become a legend and his family has stayed at the top of Hollywood for generations.

A classic (not completely faithful) adaptation of George de Maurier's famous 1890s novel "Trilby", "Svengali" of 1931 is an interesting and fantastically shot film that should not be approached with the wrong expectations. An avid fan of Classic Horror cinema, I expected this film to be exactly that, but found it to be regrettably low on the Horror part. "Svengali" was directed by the famous Archie Mayo, who is certainly best known of his Slapstick Comedies, and while this film is a Drama with some Horror elements, the film is nonetheless full of sudden outbursts of Slapstick. The set-pieces are great and the cinematography is astonishing for the time, including one sequence with a camera movement that must have been revolutionary in 1931. John Barrymore was doubtlessly one of the most outstanding actors of the classic era of film, and his performance carries the film. Furthermore, the innocent beauty of the 18-year-old Marian Marsh is overwhelming.Svengali (Barrymore), an ingenious but ruthless musician and hypnotist hypnotizes the beautiful young model Tribly (Marsh) into becoming a singer, abandoning her fiancé and marrying Svengali. While his hypnotic powers control her singing voice, they can not force her to love him...The film's greatest aspects are the fantastic cinematography, Barrymore and Marsh. Personally, I found the plot to be needlessly stretched at times. The humorous outbursts may be enjoyed by fans of classic slapstick cinema, but in a sentimental sense rather than for the actual humor's sake. Two Scottish characters are obviously only there for providing gags. There are a few genuinely eerie moments, most of them focusing on Svengali when he uses his hypnotic powers. While Svengali is villainous (he causes a woman to commit suicide in the beginning), he doesn't really act villainous enough for most of the time to be scary. At some points in the film, he seems to be a comic figure, which effectively reduces his creepiness. Besides Barrymore and Marsh, the performances aren't that good. This is not to say that "Svengali" isn't a good movie. It is. Before seeing it, one should be aware however, that one is about to watch a partly slow-moving drama rather than a Horror film. Barrymore is still great, and the young Marian Marsh is unearthly beautiful.Overall "Svengali" is recommended to my fellow fans of the classic era of film, though not one of the essentials in my opinion. For total perfection in a Classic Horror film about mind-control, I highly recommend Victor Halperlin's masterpiece "White Zombie" of 1932 starring the great Bela Lugosi in his greatest and creepiest role.