The Wandering Jew (1933)

Conrad Veidt, Peggy Ashcroft, Joan Maude, Anne Grey, Marie Ney. This copy of The Wandering Jew is a US cut which omitted some scenes. According to “The Film Daily“ in 1934, the film was re-edited to meet the objections of religious groups. The BFI has done a weird restoration of the film. While the BFI’s restoration has much better picture quality and includes the scenes that had been cut from the US version, the major drawback with the BFI’s film copy is its skipping issues. These skips in the film abruptly cut out dialogue, some of which are very significant. For instance, it disrupts Gianella’s last line in the Palermo episode. There are numerous, lengthy skips in the Seville episode in particular-- the longest skip being just over 30 seconds, and it unfortunately occurs during an important part of the film. So the US copy is actually more fluid, despite scene omissions. Perhaps one day there will be a combination of the two versions, making an actual, complete film.