For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The first must-see film of the year.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

*LOTS OF SPOILERS. A DOUBLE-WARNING, AS I DON'T WANT TO SPOIL THIS ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE FOR YOU*When I'm writing about this one, I tend to run out of superlatives halfway through. It's the greatest film from one of Hollywood's greatest directors; a silent translation of a popular operetta, and as much fun, romance and heartache as most people can generally stand across an hour and three quarters.Ramon Novarro is the titular prince, the nephew of the king of Karlsburg, whose restrictive upbringing - one of "duty, obligation and loyalty" - goes out the window, however briefly, in a fug of love, friendship and beer, swirling (swilling?) across the old city of Heidelberg.The love - and the beer, for that matter - comes from an ethereal but down-to-earth, slightly cross-eyed barmaid (Norma Shearer): the guileless, glugging Kathi forever the high point of her screen achievements. Novarro himself wasn't blessed with the greatest range, but then you don't want J. Carrol Naish as your callow, conflicted young romantic, you want a sweet, sensitive, big-eyed kid with a seductive streak - and who more suitable than Novarro, a Latino sex symbol whose tenderness and vulnerability were all too real.You want your kindly professor, his sense of fun overriding his sense of decorum, played by someone with the chops and twinkle-in-the-eye of Jean Hersholt. And, of course, you want Lubitsch, the inimitable, irreplaceable Lubitsch, behind the camera, every scene handled with that "Lubitsch touch", every moment seeming to offer something new and extraordinary to bring a smile to your lips or a tear to your eye: Shearer checking out Novarro with absolutely no subtlety when they first meet, a garden-full of beer glasses raised with military precision, the look on the lead's face as his love interest downs an entire pint, the pair's spirited night-time excursion to the finest field in movies, and that heartbreaking return to Heidelberg, as heartfelt a paean to lost innocence and the youth that is never to return as the movies have ever served up.You can analyse the film a dozen different ways and it comes up faultless - from its abundance of visual metaphor, shifting perspectives used to illustrate the prince's changing moods, to the director's sparing use of intertitles, and the use of a groundbreaking shot in summation that predates The Long Good Friday by 53 years - but it all adds up to the same thing: a film for the ages, an emotionally overwhelming portrait of self-sacrifice, paradise lost and position found, of young lovers meeting like passing trains, together for a fleeting, shining moment, then torn away by "duty, obligation and loyalty". And it's all scored to perfection in the old Thames Silents version by the peerless Carl Davis."It must be wonderful to be a prince," muses one of the town kids, studying a portrait of Novarro. On this evidence, not so much, but then isn't life just about enjoying those perfect moments when they come? This film has more than almost any other.

Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)**** out of ****Directed by Ernst LubitschWith Ramon Novarro and Norma ShearerPrince Karl Heinrich have an easy life, with all pleasure, but he hate that, he want to know the world. Suddenlly, he is send it to old Heidelebrg to study and there known, not only friends but love. Beautiful, rich, splendorous Lubitsch gem is so fresh than ever, with a gentle, incredible and beautiful Novarro and an adorable and stunning Shearer. Beautiful scenes that get sticked in your head with an uncommon ending for the time. A must see!

Watching PYGMALION after seeing MY FAIR LADY is one thing. Both films stand on their own two feet--and besides, PYGMALION came first. Even without Lerner and Lowe's music, PYGMALION is a truly wonderful film.Watching a silent STUDENT PRINCE without a Romberg melody blasting away from Carl Davis' score is another matter. Nor does NORMAL SHEARER, sporting an unattractive hairdo that makes her look matronly, look the part of a youthful barmaid, Kathi. RAMON NAVARRO plays the prince with a puppy dog eagerness and a winning smile but nothing to suggest believable chemistry with him and the dowdy looking Shearer. Surely, there must have been a better hairdresser for this particular film to at least give her a more youthful look. She ovedoes the coy flirtatiousness of the early scenes, batting her eyelashes at every drinking student.There's a certain heavy-handedness to Ernst Lubitsch's direction and an excessive amount of men doffing their hats to each other. And the final reunion scene with Navarro not getting the warm welcome from friends that he expected, is a bit overdone. These are things the silent technique probably could not avoid, even with a director like Lubitsch who is known for "that touch." On the plus side, JEAN HERSHOLT is excellent as an amiable and kindly adviser to the prince and gives warmth to the role. The Carl Davis score played by a full orchestra is delightful but one does miss hearing the hero and heroine sing the familiar operetta songs by Romberg, especially during the student drinking scenes.One has to wonder what the film was like on original release without a score like Davis wrote for the restored version. Strange indeed to have a silent film based on a famous musical.Needless to say, not my favorite Shearer film--and I enjoyed Navarro more in BEN-HUR.

Their finest year …Nineteen Twenty-Seven was the year of miracles. Motion Pictures reached a parity of technology and creative expression, resulting in the greatest collective output of this or any other year, unsurpassed in both quantity and astonishing quality. It was the year of F. W. Murnau's masterpiece Sunrise and Frank Borzage's 7th Heaven, both starring Janet Gaynor, both produced by Fox and both showered with generous and well deserved awards. While Chaplin was missing from 1927, two of film's comic legends produced what many consider their finest work. Buster Keaton's Civil War tale The General and Harold Lloyd's rural gem The Kid Brother appeared. A banner year for Weimar Cinema, UFA produced G. W. Pabst's beautiful but nearly forgotten The Love of Jean Ney and Fritz Lang's futuristic nightmare, Metropolis, while French master Able Gance released his monumental epic, Napoléon. In the year Kevin Brownlow described as "Annus Mirabilis," Hollywood leader MGM contributed Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Love, an adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and a breathtaking Ernst Lubitsch production, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)Friday, July 13, 7:00 p. m., The Castro, San FranciscoBased on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's story of doomed romance between a young prince and an innkeeper's daughter, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) was released by MGM following Sigmund Romberg's Broadway Operetta in 1924. Director Ernst Lubitsch offered a flattering combination of humorous chiding, casual effervescence and tragic duty-before-love resignation, in this lyrical adaptation, his eighth American film.The wealth of craftsmanship and technology available within Hollywood's greatest studio is visible in the lighting, editing and photography of each and every frame. Starring in one of her finest roles as Kathi, Norma Shearer rivaled any actress on the lot. She was cast in the best productions, under the aegis of her future husband, executive producer and boy genius Irving Thalberg. As Prince Karl Heinrich, Ramon Novarro's expression of naive exuberance contrasted perfectly to the militaristic reality of his royal obligation. The cast was rounded out by a group of consummate supporting characters including, Jean Hersholt, Gustav von Seyffertitz and everyone's younger self, Philippe de Lacy.A master of light comedy, Lubitsch fails to demonstrate the depth of despair and tragedy seen in the films of Borzage, Seastrom and others, but the exhilarating high entertainment of The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg is only matched by the exceptional beauty of the principle actors. Lubitsch conveys their shared desire by superimposing their eager faces, plunging the camera into close-ups and revealing the Prince's desperate fantasies of what can never be. With the timidity of a sheltered child, Karl Heinrich enters the beer garden below his rooms, seeking the acceptance of his classmates and Kathi's love. Lubitsch choreographed the swarming mass of uniformed and attentive young men with such fluid mastery, they seem to extend and punctuate every movement and gesture Karl Heinrich and Kathi make. At the moment their love is realized, they withdraw from reality, reclining in a fantasy of luminous flowers, beautiful, unreal and impossible.