Svengali is a 1931 film directed by Archie Mayo.
It is the most famous of several adaptations of the novel Trilby. Svengali (John Barrymore) is a music teacher and vocal coach in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris—but his real profession is hypnotism and mind control. He has a student and lover, Madame Honori, who is wholly untalented as a singer but who does have a rich husband. When Madame Honori comes by Svengali's apartment and reveals that she has left her husband, and has come to him without a financial settlement, Svengali cruelly rejects her. She flees from his gaze and soon commits suicide.
Enter Trilby O'Farrell (Marian Marsh), a stunningly beautiful young art model. Trilby falls in love with Billiee, Svengali's neighbor, and they talk of getting married. But Svengali hypnotizes Trilby under the pretense of curing her headache, and soon she is under his control...
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Jewish: In the novel Trilby Svengali is a crude anti-Semitic stereotype. This film does not directly invoke anti-Semitic tropes as, unlike the book, Svengali's religion is never mentioned. However, the character still looks like an anti-Semitic stereotype of an Eastern European Jew, dressed in a vaguely Hasidic manner with a long forked beard and a long hooked nose.
- Beard of Evil: Svengali has a long forked beard, marking him out as a bad guy.
- Driven to Suicide: Madame Honori drowns herself in the river when Svengali rejects her. It's implied that he hypnotically compelled her to do it.
- Face Framed in Shadow: Svengali's face is hidden in shadow as he gazes hungrily at Trilby from across the room. Soon, he hypnotizes her for the first time.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: A tolling bell makes the mood even more ominous as Svengali uses his psychic powers to call Trilby to him.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: The absurd off-key bleating of Madame Honori, when she sings for Svengali in the first scene.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Svengali's eyes go completely white when he uses his hypnotic powers. John Barrymore wore lenses that covered his eyeballs completely.
- Large Ham: John Barrymore is pretty hammy in this film, with a lot of bug-eyed stares and overly dramatic deliveries.
- Leg Focus: The camera lingers on Trilby's leg as she poses nude for a room full of artists.
- Loving a Shadow: Svengali can hypnotize Trilby into "love" but becomes frustrated when she does not love him for real.
- My Girl Is Not a Slut: Billee the idiot throws a hissy fit when he walks into a studio and sees Trilby posing naked for a room full of art students. This gives Svengali an opportunity when a hysterical, crying Trilby comes to him.
- The Pigpen: The opening scenes make clear that Svengali hasn't bathed in—a very long time. His artist neighbors wind up dunking him in a bathtub, which is how he meets Trilby, when she comes by looking for work as a model.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: It is implied that Svengali used his hypnosis powers to make Madame Honori kill herself, because she had become inconvenient. It's not for certain because the film does not show his eyes—the Hypnotic Eyes effect is saved for later, when he hypnotizes Trilby—but Madame Honori flees Svengali's apartment in terror, screaming "DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!". Soon after, she kills herself.
- Psychic Link:
- Svengali establishes one with Trilby after he hypnotizes her. He is able to look out the window and, with the power of his mind, compel her to leave her room across town and come to him.
- The link is strong enough that in the end, when Svengali has a heart attack and dies during Trilby's performance, she dies too.
- The Svengali: Surprised? The source novel was the Trope Namer. Svengali takes complete control of Trilby, using his hypnotic powers to make her both his lover and a great singer.
- Time Skip: Five years between the first part of the story, with Svengali getting his hooks into Trilby, and the second part when she has, under his control, become a singing star.
- Villain Protagonist: Svengali, the evil hypnotist who makes Trilby his thrall.
