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John Barrymore gave his best performance in the era of sound film with the 1931 Warner Brothers release of Svengali. Svengali was based on the George du Maurier novel and was a star turn for various actors on both the London and New York stages. Barrymore was in his second contract with Warner Brothers over the course of the mid 1920s and early 1930s. John Barrymore's persona in the 1920 silent films he acted in were very much swashbuckling in nature ( for a man already having his vitality drained by alcoholism). Warner Brothers profited by the pictures he made under his first contract. But Barrymore bolted for United Artists as soon as he could. This makes a second contract with Warners and Barrymore curious, but Jack Warner wanted to make pictures and money and that where Barrymore comes in yet again. John Barrymore's prestige was still strong because of his work on Broadway. Svengali comes in near the end of the second contract with Warners. The atmosphere of the film is appropriately Grand Guignol in nature. Archie Mayo was a better than journeyman director and the art direction by Anton Gort is superb. Fred Jackson's special effects of Barrymore's eyes becoming glowing orbs when he hypnotizes "Trilby" was very effective in creeping audiences out. The story is basic theater as Svengali know a good thing when he sees one and attaches himself to Trilby. Svengali had been played in the past as an evil and sinister relationship with Trilby. John Barrymore plays his Svengali as a dirty, smelly bearded "maestro" with a sardonic sense of humor. He is amoral, opportunistic with a soul full of lust for women. He has the aura of evil about him, yet displays such a joie de vire about life. Svengali is repellant, yet magnetic and charasmatic. The cast are competent professional actors dealing with early sound film issues ( Donald Crisp had a solid acting career!) The one weakness of the cast is Marian Marsh as Trilby. She was attractive, but just too young an actress to fully give credit to the part and to reacting to Barrymore's overwhelming Svengali. Yet she grows as the film goes on. Her heart belongs to "Little Billy", yet gradually comes under the dark control of Svengali. This is a story of unrequited love as Trilby grows in stature and as a concert diva, she grows in the brightness of life as Svengali is becoming more diminished and aging before our eyes. He pours his heart hypnotizing her to make her an artist and his heart has only so much to give, literally. Little Billy follows them across the continent of Europe as Trilby reaches the heights of concert performance and Svengali overreaches himself in "managing" her career. Eventually the peak is reached and the tragic descent starts for both Svengali and Trilby. The end is full of pathos and tragedy as Trilby chooses to join Svengali in death than remain with Little Billy in life. Svengali finally finds love as a complicated story comes to an end.
Warner Brothers was getting their feet settled in early sound and turning out films such as Little Cesear and The Public Enemy. Svengali was one of their early sound film gems. Barrymore gives his role such intensity and panache that it lights up the screen. This mirrored his work onstage. John Barrymore rose from giving glib and winning performances as an accomplished light comedian on Broadway to becoming the greatest American stage actor of the 20th Century. He displayed such versatility and verve in his work. Ahead for him was were Counselor at Law, Grand Hotel, A Bill of Divorcement, Topaze and Twentieth Century. John Barrymore should have won the 1931 Best Actor Oscar for this performance,but ironically was beat out by his brother Lionel, for his performance as the alcoholic attorney in MGM's A Free Soul. John Barrymore was never rewarded for the great work he did in film. Alcoholism destroyed his career and his life and that was as great a tragedy as his epic performance as Shakespeare's Hamlet. Constance Collier, who played with Barrymore in Peter Ibbetson on Broadway in 1916, and as Gertrude in Barrymore's Hamlet at the Haymaker in London in 1925 was eloquent in her remembrance of John Barrymore's art, " He was the greatest of all the actors I ever saw, and I knew Irving and Tree and so many of the great ones. He had a wild soul and no one could discipline him. Yet he was avid for criticism. He would say ' Don't tell me if I'm good. Tell me when you feel I am bad and where.' But that always the way with greatness. He had something in his eye, an almost mystic light, that only men of genius have."
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