Disraeli (1929)

Winner of 1 Academy Award:

Best Actor

George Arliss

Nominated for 2 Academy Awards:

Best Picture

Warner Bros.

Best Writing

Julien Josephon

It won 1 Oscars out of a total of 3 nominations in 1929-30.


Disraeli is the passionate Prime Minister of England in 1874 who has great intentions of creating a British empire.  However, with little to no support, he must walk a legislative tightrope in order to sway the House of Commons into ratifying the purchase of the Suez Canal.

It is adapted from the play by Louis N. Parker.

Mr. George Arliss had originally starred as the titular character in the Broadway play, the revival of the Broadway play, and a silent film adaptation in 1921.  Approximately a decade after his Oscar-winning turn in this talkie, he would again reprise his role in a radio adaptation for the "Lux Radio Theatre" radio anthology series.  Mr. George Arliss's wife, Florence Arliss, would appear alongside him as Prime Minister Disraeli's wife, Lady Beaconsfield, in each of these productions, as well.

Only the 1934 re-release of the film survives, which had its Vitaphone sound discs replaced with updated sound recording technology.  Doing so unfortunately caused the left-side of the frame to be noticeably cropped.  Because the original Vitaphone sound discs no longer exist, one is only able to view the cropped version.  Additionally, three minutes of footage had been deleted to appease the newly enforced censors and are now believed to be lost, as well.


Editorial:

This film feels like an early political drama, albeit a rather uninteresting one that concerns itself with British imperialism while glorifying ethnocentrism of the day.  The performances are fine and it is technically well accomplished.  But this movie suffers the misfortune of having part of its frame missing throughout the entire feature, and it is painfully obvious for majority of the time.  This may be forgiven if you can imagine the sound quality (which is good) being worlds better than the original, and have an appreciation for the clean restoration that it was given.  Because these are, indeed, the positives.

Score  |  04/10  |  This motion picture is worth trying.