Disraeli (1929)
(On Cable TV, October 2020) It’s amusing to go back in time and find things that will strike you as being quite modern. There are at least two strands in Disraeli that still feel quite novel, even for an early-sound-era film. They’re certainly not technical: As befit a film from the 1920s that may or may not have been restored lately, the images are often-blurry blends of various grays with few strong black or white tones. The audio is marred by constant hiss and poor audio fidelity. But when you take a look at the script, two things are striking: For one, it’s an attempt to portray the grander-than-life British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, but taking the modern approach of looking at a moment in history for the historical figure rather than attempting a multi-decade sweeping epic, as was far more common through Hollywood history. (It helps that it was based on a play which, by definition, is more concerned about unity of time than most movies.) Here, Disraeli focuses on the events surrounding the purchase of the Suez Canal, encapsulating Disraeli’s character through the various manoeuvres required to achieve his objectives. But in an almost-equally important subplot, Disraeli is also portrayed as a semi-comic figure playing matchmaker to a young couple, echoing the amusing historical reinterpretation of such movies as 1994’s I.Q. The result is undoubtedly rough to watch from a strictly audio/video perspective (Wikipedia notes that the sole surviving version is a 1934 re-release, with material forever cut to appease censors) but the result is a great deal of fun from a script perspective, and gives an accessible reason to be interested in the historical figure.