Dreyfus [The Dreyfus Case] *** (1931, Cedric Hardwicke, George Merritt, Charles Carson, Sam Livesey, Garry Marsh, Randle Ayrton, George Zucco) – Classic Movie Review 6142

Cedric Hardwicke stars as the real-life French-Jewish officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who is accused and convicted of spying in 1890s France, after German staff had forged evidence to convict him, ending up doing life on the Devil’s Island penal colony.

Directors F W Kraemer and Milton Rosmer’s version of the much-told yarn is a sterling 1931 British dawn-of-sound movie.

Charles Carson also stars as Colonel Picquart and George Merritt plays the writer Emile Zola, who sets out to reveal the truth and win him a pardon.

Though obviously greatly dated, the film is well done all round, with strong performances, and Hardwicke is stupendous. Also significant in the cast are Sam Livesey, Garry Marsh, Randle Ayrton, George Zucco.

In America it was called The Dreyfus Case, after the source play’s title.

Reginald Berkeley and Walter C Mycroft’s screenplay is based on Richard Oswald’s 1930 Dreyfus, the German film version of the novel by Bruno Weil, and the play by Wilhelm Herzog and Hans Rehfisch.

The cast are Cedric Hardwicke as Captain Alfred Dreyfus, Charles Carson as Colonel  Picquart, George Merritt as Émile Zola, Sam Livesey as Labori, Beatrix Thomson as Lucille Dreyfus, Garry Marsh as Major Esterhazy, Randle Ayrton as the court-martial president, Henry Caine as Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry, Reginald Dance as president of the Zola trial, George Skillan as Major Armand du Paty de Clam, Leonard Shepherd as Georges Clemenceau, Arthur Hardy as General Auguste Mercier, Alexander Sarner as Mathieu Dreyfus, Frederick Leister as Edgar Demange, J Fisher White as Georges-Gabriel de Pellieux, Abraham Sofaer as Dubois, J Leslie Frith as Alphonse Bertillon, George Zucco as Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac, Nigel Barrie as Jules Lauth and Violet Howard as Marguerite.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6142

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