Just as the silent film era was cresting into perfection, talkies came along and sent everybody back to the creative dark ages. As Singin’ in the Rain so wonderfully depicted, you couldn’t have your microphone or your transceiver too far away from the central hub of actors, and so we went from fluid and incredible virtuoso camera work of the previous era to static shots of people bunched together delivering reams and reams of dialogue. It seemingly went from a visual medium to a written medium overnight. This wasn’t entirely true, though. There were plenty of amazing, inventive craftsmen who found wonderful ways to play with their restrictions or hide them altogether (the film that mercifully beat it for Best Picture was All Quiet on the Western Front, which is mindbogglingly ahead of its time, technically). Unfortunately, Alfred E. Green does not appear to be one of those people.
Disraeli is brutally stagebound, almost technically reminiscent of Robert Altman’s breathtakingSecret Honor, featuring Richard Nixon ranting about his hangups for an hour and a half, but where that was mesmerizing, the bulk of Disraeli is just British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (George Arliss) hanging out in his office giving speeches being awesome and making everyone’s lives better. Well, we’re not shown him being awesome (in fact, he doesn’t do or say much at all, even when he’s blathering on), but all the characters react to him as if he isawesome, which is almost as good, right? He spreads his awesomeness around, from playing matchmaker to uptight assistant Charles (Anthony Bushell) and Lady Clarissa (Joan Bennett), up to stealing the rights to the Suez Canal from under the nose of Count Borsinov (Michael Visaroff) and Russia.
You would think the procurement of an incredibly valuable canal to his country would be an exciting process, but there never seems to be a single ounce of weight to the proceedings. I don’t know if the American audiences of 1929 were just incredible well-versed in the minutiae of Benjamin Disraeli’s life, but we’re never given much indication that he even IS the Prime Minister. He doesn’t seem to hold a lot of actual power, he just dispenses sage, empty wisdom to everybody around him, like a less-interesting, less charismatic Cornel West.
The lack of interest comes from the script, but the lack of charisma comes from the actor, and it’s a curious thing, too. George Arliss had been playing the part of Benjamin Disraeli for a large chunk of his entire career. He originated the part on stage in 1911, and starred in a silent version of the story in 1921. Clearly audiences found his doddering, wispy portrayal satisfactory, because at 60, he decided to pull it out again for his talkie debut in this one, and for that, not only was he credited as “Mr. George Arliss”, but he won the Oscar for Best Actor in a year that was either comically thin, or just shows that even in 1930, just three years into the history of the award show, they were already giving out prestigeous awards based on audience goodwill and lifetime achievement.
[Grade: 5/10 (C) / #7 (of 7) of 1929]
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