The Ancient Law

The Ancient Law (Das alte Gesetz) is a 1923 German silent drama film directed by E. A. Dupont and starring Henny Porten, Ruth Weyher and Hermann Vallentin. The son of an Orthodox Rabbi faces hostility from his father when he decides to become an actor.

Plot
In the middle of the 19th century, Baruch, the son of a rabbi, decides to leave his Galician shtetl against his father's wishes to become an actor. He initially joins a travelling theatre, where the Austrian Archduchess Elisabeth Theresia takes a liking to him and uses her influence to get him an engagement at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Baruch manages to become a celebrated and successful star. His father, Rabbi Mayer, is appalled by this life and rejects his son. When he finally attends a performance of Don Carlos with his son, he is deeply impressed by his son's acting talent, recognises it as a grace from God and forgives him after a discussion. Baruch returns home, where his childhood sweetheart Esther has been waiting for him.

Cast

 * Henny Porten as Archduchess Elisabeth Theresia
 * Ruth Weyher as court lady
 * Hermann Vallentin as Heinrich Laube
 * Avrom Morewski (Abraham Morewski) as Rabbi Mayer
 * Ernst Deutsch as Baruch, his son
 * Grete Berger as his mother
 * Robert Garrison as Ruben Pick
 * Margarete Schlegel as Esther, his daughter
 * Jakob Tiedtke as Director of the Actors
 * Olga Limburg as his wife
 * Alice Hechy as second daughter
 * Julius Brandt as an old comedian
 * Fritz Richard as Nathan the professor
 * Wolfgang Zilzer as page
 * Kálmán Zátony as Joseph Wagner
 * Robert Scholz
 * Alfred Krafft-Lortzing
 * Dominik Löscher
 * Philipp Manning

Production and release
The film sets were designed by Alfred Junge and realised by Curt Kahle. The costumes were designed by Ali Hubert.

The film premiered in Germany on 29 October 1923. It is seven acts long and was released for young people. It has been preserved in several copies, which differ from one another and in some cases do not correspond to the original. On the initiative of film scholar Cynthia Walk, the film was digitally restored by the Deutsche Kinemathek. Philippe Schoeller composed a new film score, which was recorded by the Jakobsplatz Orchestra in Munich. The restored version - with a longer running time of 135 minutes - premiered on 16 February 2018 at the Berlinale 2018 with a live performance of the film music in the Friedrichstadt-Palast. The intertitles are a reconstruction based on the censorship cards.

Reception
Extensive reviews appeared in the film magazines Film-Kurier and Lichtbild-Bühne in 1923.

"Dupont succeeds in making the atmosphere of the very different worlds of this film visible: the ghetto milieu, which is separated from the world outside by an almost insurmountable wall, and this world itself; which is made vivid here by the Vienna of the sixties, which is carried by the rhythms of the waltzes of Johann Strauss and for which the Burgtheater is the epitome of all art par excellence."

"And now Dupont's direction: certainly, he made mistakes with lengths and widths. But how forgivable they are! Must one not involuntarily remain lovingly attached to the depiction of this milieu, which is necessary to awaken deeper understanding? These shortcomings can be eliminated with a few silhouettes. And how are they compensated for by enchanting directorial units, wonderfully seen images and a subtlety of line that may not always have been easy given the sacredness of the subject."