The Wandering Jew

A British adaptation of a famous story that has since lapsed into obscurity, THE WANDERING JEW strives to be a lush historical epic but in fact it feels long-winded and dragged out. The story is about a man who is cursed to eternal life, and adopts the following format: the wayfarer travels to a community, is involved in the events, finally exposed, and forced to move on to the next place. There's no real character arc or insight here; events are just portrayed 'as is'.

It's a dated affair that feels rather yawn-worthy, unfortunately. The epic scenes have dated in the worst way and the crowd shots all feel rather theatrical. The religious aspects to the storyline were also dull and old-fashioned. The main draw for me was the chance to see German actor Conrad Veidt (of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI fame) in his first English-speaking part, although he's hidden behind flowing robes, make-up, and a straggly beard for the running time. The ending is abrupt and the whole film feels like it has little to say despite best intentions.

"The Wandering Jew" is a fairly straightforward retelling of that legend. The film's strong points are Conrad Veidt's central performance, a good supporting cast of actors who would later be better known, and some very impressive production values ... including sets and costumes representing several different centuries. The film has an aggressively Christian viewpoint, but cannot strictly be considered Christian propaganda because the legend of the Wandering Jew is not part of Christian teaching: this story isn't in the Bible.

Veidt plays Matathias, a Jew of the Holy Land who happens to be nearby on the road to Golgotha when Christ is brought to the place of Crucifixion. When Matathias expresses a lack of concern for Christ's fate, Christ tells him "You will remain here until I return". A softly glowing light grows stronger, and Matathias stares in horror.

Because of Christ's words, Matathias has been cursed with immortality. He cannot die, he cannot grow older, and he must periodically relocate to another community (and establish a new identity) so that nobody will notice that he never ages. The film is necessarily episodic: we see Matathias trying to blend into one community, then the narrative abruptly jumps ahead to another century as Matathias has relocated yet again.

This film's strangest (and most interesting) aspect is the decision not to depict Christ directly ... neither by image nor by voice. During the early scenes, Christ is apparently located just outside the right-hand edge of the film's frame; Veidt and the other actors turn in profile to the camera and stare at something offscreen. (The entire movie has the feel of a rather creaky stage play, and the feeling is especially pervasive here.) When Christ speaks to Veidt, we do not hear an actor's voice ... instead, we see words (in a very ornate type font) superimposed directly in front of Veidt's face, spelling out Christ's malediction. There is an eerie glow from just beyond the frame, apparently representing Christ's aura. For those who wonder about such things: Christ's voice speaks in a serif typeface.

SPOILER WARNING. The film unfortunately ends rather abruptly and arbitrarily. Matathias has only got as far as the Middle Ages when the curse is suddenly lifted and he is permitted to die. No compelling reason is given for why this particular time and place should be the end of the Wandering Jew's journey. Most versions of the Wandering Jew legend (including the classic science-fiction novel "A Canticle for Liebowitz") state that the Jew is still wandering, right up to the present day, because (so they claim) Christ has not yet returned. It would have been interesting if this film had included an epilogue set in the here and now (England, 1933) in which the Wandering Jew is still living among us.

Peggy Ashcroft (not yet Dame Peggy) is very good and quite attractive in a very small role. Francis L. Sullivan, normally an excellent character actor, is wasted here in a role that lets him ponce about in a bishop's elaborate robes but which gives him nothing to do. The historical details are more accurate than is usual in films of this period.

"The Wandering Jew" is an interesting fantasy, and its religious aspects are less obtrusive than they might have been. I recommend this film.

Maurice Elvey's second try at this three part barnstormer (Matheson Lang didn't get a jousting sequence) remains a Sunday School outing but the ingredients and his technical control of them, give it enduring interest.

Conrad Veidt's first English speaking outing has him more convincing than the British old hands, getting about in costume warehouse gear, though the familiar face players do well - Peggy Ashcroft, Francis L. Sulivan and Felix Aylmer.

Compare this with the soon to follow PRIVATE LIVES OF HENRY VIII and you have a snap shot of the problems of the native British film industry - competent, unadventurous, respectful and old fashioned.

It is a measure of Veidt and Elvey that they still manage to involve us in the totally bogus story of the Jew who cursed Christ and found himself stuck on earth till the Second Coming. We actually worry about Conrad's "Is my time not yet come."

Conrad Veidt was one of the most popular actors in Germany till the Nazis came to power.Because he refused to divorce his Jewish wife and swear allegiance to the party he and his wife,were he had a successful career till his move to America in 1941,after a few films where played Nazis,he died on a golf course in 1943.His is is a truly magnetic presence which can light up even the dullest film.Veidt also starred in Jew Suss for Gaumont British a couple of years later,which I consider to be superior to this film in every way.Quintana state's that upon this films release critics opinions were equally divided between those who found it brilliant and those who found it dull..The film was episodic and at times the pace is lethargic and I suppose difficult to put in the context of the time.It was prophetic of what was going to happen within a very short period of time.It should not be dismissed lightly.

Another reviewer, in 2002, commented on this film: "The film unfortunately ends rather abruptly and arbitrarily. Matathias has only got as far as the Middle Ages when the curse is suddenly lifted and he is permitted to die. No compelling reason is given for why this particular time and place should be the end of the Wandering Jew's journey." In fact, the Middle Ages segment is the second one; it is followed by the Renaissance segment and finally the Spanish Inquisition, in which the Jew is burned as a heretic. I think the answer to the decision to end the Jew's life in this period has to do with the period when the film was made, the early 30s, when the Nazis were once again asking "Are you a Jew?" and condemning people based on the answer.

(I should add that the same director made a silent film of The Wandering Jew, 10 years earlier, and there is a note on IMDb that his star was famous in the role in theatrical productions. So the story and probably its blazing finale were established in a stage version much earlier.)

The original story would be that the Jew is to wait "until Christ comes again," i.e. the Second Coming, the Last Judgement. The film script modifies this to "until I come to you again," and the plot shows us the slow progress of Mathatias from a man who would rather see his beloved dead than alive with her husband, to an understanding of the Christian hope in life after death and a less selfish love (in the Italian story, where he decides not to kill his wife as a gesture of possession when she wants to become a nun), to an actual Christ-like role in the Seville sequence, where a whore defines her relationship with him as that of Mary Magdalene to Christ (thank heavens the DaVinci Code theory had not been cooked up at the time). So Christ "comes to him again" as he is being burned as a heretic.

Interestingly, his heresy consists of (1) blasphemy, in saying that Christ might be hard put to recognize his own, i.e. the inquisitors themselves, since they are not Christlike, and (2) refusing to deny his Jewishness. Christ, of course, was himself brought before the High Priests on a charge of blasphemy. The film sort of finesses the problem of baptism (in the version I saw, there was no evidence of the Italian son's being baptized, but the friar says that he has gone to Heaven when he dies), which is what the Inquisitors are in principle asking Mathatias to undertake.

However, the decision is presented to him not as being baptized in Christ but rather as denying his Jewishness, ceasing to be a Jew, and in the early 30s the ringing declaration--by a Christ figure--"I am a Jew!" must have been pretty strong stuff.

The end of another British film starring Veidt, Jew Suss, is similar; Suss in fact has a choice to declare himself not Jewish, since in fact his father was a local aristocrat, but he opts to die a Jew, representing the people he grew up with. Both Suss and Mathatias are heavy-duty sinners (lust, avarice, and pride to say the least) and their Jewishness is not "normalized"--parts of the Wandering Jew look like an excellent production of Merchant of Venice--but they redeem their sins by their concern for the poor, the outcast, and, in Jew Suss's case, specifically Jews in a pogrom situation.

Since Veidt in fact insisted on declaring he was a Jew on official German forms in the early 30s, although he wasn't (his wife was), his choice of two roles of Jewish martyrs was a pretty obvious political move. (Later in Hollywood he starred as a Nazi general in Escape, whose plot turns on the internment in a prison camp of a famous American Jewish actress who was born in Germany.) I think there was a lot of denial in the UK and America about the situation of the Jews under the Nazis, and Veidt seems to have done what he could to make it clearer that antisemitism should disgust decent people and especially Christians.