Wednesday 14 January 2009

Svengali

"Whether any viewers ever found Gabbo or his dummy uncanny I do not know. It does seem to me more likely that such a feeling was elicited by another film of the period, Svengali (Mayo, 1931). In the most famous sequence in this film, the title character (John Barrymore) summons Trilby (Marian Marsh) across several Paris streets to his attic studio.
...
I find this sequence powerfully evoking the uncanniness of early sound films."

Spadoni, Robert pp.41-2 Uncanny Bodies 2007

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