Silent Cinema

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

Lubitsch’s classic serves up lantern-lit beer gardens, moonlit apple blossom and young love in old Heidelberg, accompanied by one of Carl Davis’ best orchestral scores.

  • Director

    Ernst Lubitsch

  • With

    Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer, Jean Hersholt

  • USA 1927. 106min

  • 35mm

Simplicity is expensive. In films, as in fashion or cookery, the best ingredients, in the hands of a master, produce the most refined results. This effervescent but studio-shot romance cost nearly as much as the great 1925 epic Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, in which Ramon Novarro, the Student Prince, caused a sensation. Only Lubitsch could have raised this soufflé of a plot, about a young prince’s one taste of love and freedom before the duties of office are reasserted, into a genuinely moving and universal story of loneliness. The 35mm print being shown is from the Photoplay restoration and is screening as a tribute to the late Carl Davis, who died in August 2023, and was composer of the delightful orchestral score we will be live-synching to accompany this very special screening.

Bryony Dixon

Access information

The screening on Friday 13 June 17:50 NFT1 will include a BSL interpreted introduction.

With thanks to Patrick Stanbury.

Tickets £22.50, concessions £18.50 (Members pay £2.50 less).