This movie is a Nazi propaganda one, that presents itself as a movie all based on true events, made under the command of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. People involved with this movie were either forced- or loyal to the Nazi cause, though lots of them denied that of course later after the war, to avoid prosecution, such as director Veit Harlan. Because of its propaganda themes and anti-semitic agenda the movie is still banned in lots of countries.
It's a movie that not so delicately shows what should happen when you give Jews too much freedom and control. They take and then they take some more. All Jews in this movie are money-crazed and evil toward the common people. It's quite laughable really how black and white the movie with it's themes is. The contrasts are huge between the noble and German folks in this movie and the evil manipulating Jews.
But well, there is simply no denying it that as a movie this is a pretty good one. It got well made and the story, despite of its propaganda themes and wrongful intentions, is a quite solid and intriguing one.
It's a movie that is set in 18th century Germany. This means that the movie also gets filled with some splendid looking sets and costumes. The movie probably wasn't a very cheap one to make. The movie its look certainly uplifts the whole movie.
Quite surprising to see Werner Krauss in this movie as well, who was like one of the biggest German movie stars of early cinema during the '20's. He plays the very stereotypical Jewish characters Rabbi Loew and Sekretar Levy. Appearantly he developed a Nazi ideology when Adolf Hitler came to power, which was his reason for appearing in this movie. Being the great and legendary actor that he was, he was pretty much forgiven later on, unlike many other actors and directors who's careers got pretty much ruined after the war had ended. Heinrich George for instance ended up in a Soviet concentration camp after the war and died there, only one year later.
I simply judge this movie as a movie, though in 1940 it would had probably only made me mad.
8/10
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