We first see Mr. George Arliss as Disraeli looking like a Punch cartoon of the Great Man. His spit curl is no more convincing than Groucho's mustache. Yet, as he wanders through the movie, spouting famous aphorisms, charming the ladies, browbeating and educating the men, and snatching the Suez Canal from under the nose of the French, he grows and shrinks, assuming the proportions of a man. He is witty, smart, fearful for the future, patriotic, visionary, daring, and kind. He helps a shy Anthony Bushell court a dazzling, delicate Joan Bennett. His warmth is on display for his friends, particularly Ivan F. Simpson, who helps him put the purchase of the Canal through and bankrupts himself in the process. With his foes, Doris Lloyd and David Torrence, he is sly and fierce is combat, and generous in victory. With his wife, played by Arliss' wife Florence, he is romantic and ultimately loving.
It seems an odd sort of movie to win Arliss his Best Actor Oscar, but then the silent version of such a talky-talk stage play must have seemed even odder. Alfred Green directs it as a series of scenes, very much like something on the boards, if the number of sets were no issue. Yet this was 1929, the year when talkies had clearly triumphed, and Arliss' stage presence, his practiced and fluid performance, his ability to say the words clearly, and his self-deprecatory charm on screen must have dazzled the Academy when contrasted with the other nominees, all veterans of the flickers.
In the end, the movie is a an odd one by cinematic standards, clearly made in a year when Hollywood was learning how to speak. It survives because of Mr. George Arliss' performance, full of all the good things that might make a great man worth following.
It seems an odd sort of movie to win Arliss his Best Actor Oscar, but then the silent version of such a talky-talk stage play must have seemed even odder. Alfred Green directs it as a series of scenes, very much like something on the boards, if the number of sets were no issue. Yet this was 1929, the year when talkies had clearly triumphed, and Arliss' stage presence, his practiced and fluid performance, his ability to say the words clearly, and his self-deprecatory charm on screen must have dazzled the Academy when contrasted with the other nominees, all veterans of the flickers.
In the end, the movie is a an odd one by cinematic standards, clearly made in a year when Hollywood was learning how to speak. It survives because of Mr. George Arliss' performance, full of all the good things that might make a great man worth following.