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Neff made her British film debut in this remake that doesn't come up to the standards of the 1931 original. She's the artist's model who comes under Wolfit's spells and becomes a famous singer. The film is unnecessarily talky and has a few superfluous scenes. The second half picks up a bit, building some good suspense, but the outstanding feature of this SVENGALI is its visual style, based on illustrations from the original book. The production began with character actor Robert Newton in the role of Svengali, but when he walked out Wolfit was brought in as his replacement.