The Doppelgänger theme of The Student of Prague was evidently an irresistible one for German film artists; Henrik Galeen's 1926 film is the better known of the two fascinating versions of the story we present (see September 3); yet a third, less successful version was made during the Nazi period with wholly different implications. Conrad Veidt gives a stunning performance as the impoverished student who sells his reflection to a conjurer in exchange for wealth and a propitious marriage. Paul Rotha writes in The Film Till Now, "This remarkable film...stands out during the transition period, when the decorative art film was being succeeded by the naturalist film. Expressionist themes and cubist settings, so marked in the first German period, had developed into motives of mysticism and Baroque design, to give place again to the naturalness of the street, the town, and the individual. The Student of Prague combined both of these two latter periods. It had open spaciousness and dark psychology, wild poetic beauty and a deeply dramatic theme. Beyond this, it had Conrad Veidt at his best.... As a film that relied for its emotional effect on the nature of the material, the lighting and pictorial composition, it was unparalleled."