A Brilliant Conflict

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The acting in this movie is really good.

The sets were excellent and the production values were great ,but, there were some problems.Heinrich George's Duke of Burgundy and Erich Ponto's Lord Talbot were too comical.They acted like animated characters,that you did not take seriously.Gustave Grundgens King Charles character acted too insecure.Now Rene Deltgens performance as Maillezais, I think Johannas boyfriend? was excellent.Angela Salloker was excellent as Joan,But was not given enough screen time.Joan was rather under minded.In this version she was already in the war.I got the feeling that this film was made in a hurry.Everything looks in a hurry.The war of the french against British come in fast,the winning against the British,then after the celebration she is immediately accused of heresy.Possibly caused by Willy Birgel character Le Tremouille.His performance was good.You see Veit Harlan as an actor playing a small role, Pierre.His acting was not bad.I don't know why his acting was viewed as not being good.After they burned her quick and not before she had her trial quick, hypocritically in this film she is canonized as a saint.Just because i did not like it it does not mean it was not good.The movie focus mainly on the war and her death.This left very little time for her character.Ingrid Bergman and Falconnetti did it better,but they weren't propaganda films.This film had mainly mild propaganda .I could have sworn that Erich Pronto mentioned Hitler or it sounded that way,the word he said.Good print.available at Germanwarfilms.com and ReichsKino,you like it .03/29/12

For starters, IMDb shows the wrong poster/different version for this film and should change it. I recently bought a subtitled DVD from a website featuring old and rare foreign films. Video/audio quality varies but the prices are good. It's an interesting film but historically inaccurate. Because this film was made in 1935, keep in mind it's an anti-French and anti-British propaganda piece disguised as a historical epic. Check out Grahame Greene's contemporary review where he compares the performance of Gustav Grundgens(who the novel and film 'Mephisto' is based on)as the French King to Hitler: 'The real hero is Charles VII with his Nazi mentality, his belief in the nobility of treachery for the sake of the nation. The purge of 30 June and the liquidation of Tremouille, the burning Reichstag and the pyre in Rouen market-place - these political parallels are heavily underlined. The direction is terribly sincere, conveying a kind of blond and shaved admiration for lonely dictators who have been forced to eliminate their allies.'This was a big UFA production for its time(good music too)and it did well because of the subject matter. It's worth watching for the performances of famous actors although the stress on political intrigue sometimes makes Joan a secondary character. This is a good history lesson on the uses of propaganda although you can't help feel sympathetic for the title character who becomes a 'tool' and victim of the crafty king. The DVD's video quality is acceptable and could have been better but who knows if there is a better copy out there.

Featuring many German theatre stars, this film portrays Joan of Arc as a simple woman whose belief in victory enables her to bring people from ignominy to national rebirth. Directed by Gustav Ucicky, this film would make a good double bill with the 1949 Ingrid Bergman film `Joan of Arc'.