Lohengrin (1936) Review - Pure Italian Chaos

If you have eighty minutes to spare and want to see a very young, ridiculously charming Vittorio De Sica lie his way through high society, then yes, Lohengrin is absolutely worth your time today. But if you get easily annoyed by vintage Italian door-slamming farces where everyone behaves like they just drank four espressos, you will probably want to throw your remote at the screen. ☕

This is one of those old-school "white telephone" comedies from the 1930s where the set design looks like a fancy hotel lobby that nobody actually lives in. The whole thing is based on some old theater play, and boy, does it show.

People enter rooms, gasp, hide behind curtains, and exit through the side doors just in time for the next person to do the exact same thing. It is incredibly silly.

De Sica plays a guy who gets mistaken for a grand opera star—specifically, the legendary knight from Wagner’s opera. He doesn't even try to correct anyone because, well, the ladies are throwing themselves at him, and the free dinners are just too good to pass up.

It reminds me a bit of how silent films like When Love Sets the Fashion handled these silly romantic misunderstandings, but here we get the added bonus of fast-talking Italian banter.

There is this one incredibly long scene in a dining room where De Sica is trying to eat a plate of spaghetti while pretending to know how to sing opera. The way he keeps waving his fork around to avoid hitting the high notes is honestly hysterical. 😂

It’s the kind of physical comedy that feels completely natural, like he just made it up on the spot because the director forgot to write actual lines. The camera just sits there and lets him do his thing.

Meanwhile, the supporting cast is just... loud.

Giuditta Rissone is great as the suspicious wife, but some of the other actors scream their lines like they are trying to reach the back row of a stadium. Luigi Almirante has this eye-twitching routine that goes on for about three scenes too long.

By the third time his mustache starts wiggling, you kind of wish someone would just hand him a glass of water and tell him to calm down.

Some weird details I wrote down:

• The telephone in the main hallway is huge, like the size of a modern microwave.
• A background extra in the party scene literally just stares at the camera for five seconds before realizing he's on screen.
• The music sometimes just stops mid-scene, leaving this weird, dead silence.

This is definitely not a grand dramatic masterpiece like those early versions of Othello. It’s just a dumb, lighthearted distraction that doesn't care about making sense.

The plot basically evaporates in the last ten minutes anyway. They just sort of gather in a circle, laugh at the confusion, and the movie abruptly ends while you're still wondering if anyone actually got sued for impersonating an opera singer.

Its not perfect, and the print I watched looked like it had been dragged through a puddle, but it has this warm, goofy energy that’s hard to hate. If you’re in the mood for something breezy and don't mind reading subtitles while people yell at each other in gorgeous suits, give it a spin.