This week’s post has been written by Devan Scott, host of the superb “How Would Lubitsch Do it?” podcast. As anyone familiar with this series will know, Devan is not only an exceedingly knowledgeable devotee of Lubitsch but an active participant in researching and promoting the director’s work. Here, he writes about the discovery of an alternate version of The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg and the light this copy sheds on the film’s production and exhibition across 1927-28. So, without further ado, I now hand over the reins to Devan…

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg – also known under the title Old Heidelberg – has been an obsession of mine ever since I first watched it a half-decade ago, and I attribute this to the fact that it exists at a unique intersection between three interests of mine.
First: it is not only a film by Ernst Lubitsch, greatest of all directors of romantic comedies, but a great film. It is, as far as his American canon is concerned, an unusually simplistic bit of melodrama: a young, cloistered prince experiences the world for the first time and winds up in a doomed romance with someone below his station. There’s very little of Lubitsch’s trademark high-society gamesmanship, but it’s brilliant anyways because of his singular ability to shade every single gesture with the lightest of brushstrokes. It’s a swooning film of large gestures, but it’s never only that.
Second: the version of the film I first encountered features an orchestral score composed by Carl Davis, greatest of all retrospective silent film composers. In typical Davis fashion, it is a brash, boisterous marvel of a thing, with an uncommon sensitivity towards the film for which it has been composed. It interfaces with the film as readily as any of Lubitsch’s own gestures, and this collaboration across time has resulted in a masterpiece.
Third, and the focus of this blog piece: outside of the odd 35mm screening here or there, the film has solely been available in the form of a telecine of the 1984 restoration by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, for which Davis wrote his score. Released on laserdisc by MGM/UA Home Video in 1993, and occasionally broadcast since then, this telecine is a wholly inadequate representation of a work of such magnitude. (Retroformat recently posted a different version of Old Heidelberg. Though this version matches the cut restored by Brownlow/Gill, it derives from a heavily cropped 16mm print that is unfortunately inferior to the laserdisc.)
And so it came as a pleasant surprise that one day, out of the blue, a high-definition version of the film suddenly appeared on the Bundesarchiv’s digital platform. (Credit to Anthony on my Discord server for spotting this.) Per the opening title card, this version derives from the archives of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) – and features a distinct title. Whereas the widely circulating Brownlow/Gill version credited itself simply “Old Heidelberg”, this version was titled “The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg.” Though a problematic transfer of an unrestored print, the improvement it offers on the laserdisc is obvious:


Clearly, the logical next step for me was to line it up with the laserdisc version so as to create an ideal hybrid video synchronized to the Carl Davis soundtrack. This is the point at which certain kinks made themselves known: it quickly became apparent that these two versions of the film featured often wildly divergent shot lengths and, in the case of the MoMA version, greatly extended sequences with distinct footage.
My initial suspicion was that this was an alternative negative, possibly struck for overseas territories; this suspicion was echoed by the many extremely helpful folks who generously responded to my various self-indulgent emails on the subject. (In addition to this blog’s proprietor, Dave Kehr, Peter Williamson, Scott Eyman, David Neary, Stefan Drossler, Jose Arroyo, and Matt Severson all contributed information and guidance to this piece.)
Further analysis of the film made it clear that – with a few exceptions involving alternate takes and a few extended or truncated scenes – the bulk of the changes were related to two elements:
- New location footage of the real Heidelberg, Germany, totally absent from the earlier version which featured footage exclusively shot in the Los Angeles County area.

- Norma Shearer’s performance, which has (compromised logistics of quick-and-dirty reshoots permitting) been largely reshot to the tune of at least fifty new distinct replacement shots. Only a few of these feature any other performers: the vast majority feature her and only her. (Note the production design inconsistencies in the example below (see images), which indicate pick-up photography done after principal had wrapped.)

The aesthetic implications of the first additions are limited: there’s a greater sense of verisimilitude around Heidelberg, the entrance to which is rendered with significantly more grandeur. A fine set of additions, but the fabric of the film is not fundamentally altered.
Shearer’s reshoots, on the other hand, have fascinating knock-on effects on the film’s form. She hits her emotional beats with far more emphasis in the new footage, and the rhythms of the performative edits are far more generous – geared to give her time in which to land those beats. The results are a mixed bag: certain beats cut through with more clarity, but (though this could be my own familiarity bias towards Old Heidelberg) at other points Shearer risks embodying Rawitch a little too closely.
The most interesting by-product of this new coverage is the way that scenes otherwise covered in long master shots have been broken up with somewhat more conventional coverage in the form of close-ups. Whether the motivation for doing so was to better highlight Shearer’s performance or to better suit the limited nature of pick-ups (it’s easier to recreate a set if the background is cropped and out-of-focus), the impact in the newer version is that the camera direction subtly changes whenever Shearer is on screen. There’s a slightly out-of-character (for Lubitsch) cuttiness, and Lubitsch was rarely one to lean on close-ups to make subtle emotional beats emphatic anyways. For example, in the below scene (see images) there is a common occurrence: a cut breaks up the final wide shot with a close-up, extending the scene and more forcefully punctuating the emotional beat.


As is probably clear at this point, this is no A-negative/B-negative situation but an updated version of the film assembled at a later date. What we know about the circumstances of the film’s development, production, and post-production cycle is in some ways illuminating and in others a contradictory fog-of-war situation…
The film’s origin lies with MGM’s purchase of the rights to the operetta The Student Prince (1924), itself based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster’s play In Old Heidelberg (1901), itself adapted from his novel Karl Heinrich (1898). William Wellman and Erich von Stroheim were at various points either attached or courted before Lubitsch – on loan in the midst of his move from Warner Brothers to Paramount – landed the project. Both Shearer and Navarro were reportedly insisted upon by the studio.
Principal photography wrapped up by early May 1927. Lubitsch’s desire to include footage of the real Heidelberg led him to decamp to Germany to record b-roll material there in mid-May. This is where things become hopelessly convoluted. Various sources, including The Exhibitor’s Herald and Picture Play, all seem to agree that John Stahl undertook reshoots in Lubitsch’s absence, but the details of these reshoots are contested: the Herald (August 1927) claims that these involved retakes of Shearer, and that additionally Paul Bern and Fred Niblo also took turns at the helm before Lubitsch resumed control when he returned from Germany. Picture Play (October & November 1927) claims that certain “love episodes” were “tempered”.
A frequently-made claim involves Stahl reshooting the film’s major “love scene” in particular. An odd claim, considering that this scene – the one in the moonlit field – is one of the few featuring Shearer that is virtually identical between the two cuts. Could this claim be referring to a later, far more subdued (and heavily reshot) scene in which Karl and Kathi kiss on a sofa before a fade-out (the sole time in the film that we’re invited to infer that the two have consummated their romance)?

Confusing matters further, Meyer-Förster and MGM were embroiled in various legal battles throughout 1927 over naming rights: various trade publications refer to the film in early 1927 as “Old Heidelberg” before transitioning to “The Student Prince” thereafter. Meyer-Förster’s lawsuit and appeal – though both rejected – would seem to have something to do with this name change, as reported in Picture Play:
[T]he author of “Old Heidelberg” took occasion to make some unpleasant remarks about the filming of his play. His contention was that the picture had been made without his permission. It seems that this had necessitated a change in title, and so “Old Heidelberg” will come to the screen as “The Student Prince”, thus linking it up with the recent musical version of the famous German play.
Whatever the provenance of the various shoots, the film premiered in September 1927 in New York and entered general release in January 1928. MGM’s continuity cutting report, filed in June 1928, would appear to indicate that the later “The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg” cut – complete with reshoots – was what entered general release that year. By 1936, MoMA had acquired the nitrate print of “The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg”, with a copy landing at the Bundesarchiv in 1970.
This version, however, seems to have been lost to film history at some point between MoMA’s acquisition and its resurfacing this year. Virtually everything written about the film – at least, what’s publicly available – is based on the “Old Heidelberg” version. To take one example, in a text from 2017 that continues to accompany screenings, Kevin Brownlow states that Lubitsch’s on-location footage taken in Heidelberg never made it into the final cut of the film. (This text has been reprinted at recent screenings of the film.) Yet the existence of “The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg” cut – and its apparent status as the definitive released version – clearly indicates that this is not the case. Additionally, prior to my inquiries it seems that neither the Bundesarchiv nor MoMA had any information regarding this version and its distinctiveness: it appears to have fallen through the historical cracks until now. I look forward to a more detailed account of the two versions and their provenance, once more investigation has taken place.
Just as interesting are the numerous unanswered questions: did the Old Heidelberg cut ever see significant screenings in 1927? Perhaps this was what premiered in New York in 1927, or maybe it was relegated to overseas showings? Why did this version, almost certainly lesser-seen, eventually become the only widely-available one? Who or what instigated the Shearer-centric reshoots? It’s tantalizing to imagine that they were an Irving Thalberg initiative, given his relationship with Shearer. How much of the new footage was directed by Lubitsch? These questions vary in terms of knowability, but they’re fascinating to contemplate.
Happily, the resurfacing of “The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg” cut has set gears in motion that might lead to a full restoration (and release) of the film. This should include the tinting scheme detailed by MGM’s continuity report of 1928. While most of the film remains monochrome, blue is indicated for nighttime scenes and lavender for the death of the king and its aftermath.



There remains the question of whether Carl Davis’s score can be made to synchronize with a different cut of the film. My own (amateur) synchronizing of the two versions indicates that Davis’s work could be adapted for the new cut without many compromises. (Some looping and grafting fixed most of the holes, but the different pacing of various scenes meant an increase of speed by as much as 10%.) I can only hope that such minor changes to the score/recording might be possible for any future (official) restoration.
Whatever happens, this is an exciting time to be one of this film’s fans. When unencumbered by the ravages of a decades-old laserdisc transfer, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg is a film of immense emotional power, and one of Lubitsch’s great silent works.
Devan Scott
My great thanks to Devan for writing this week’s post. I alert interested readers to his “How Would Lubitsch Do it?” podcast, which includes an episode on The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. – Paul Cuff