Lubitsch in Berlin: Anna Boleyn (1920)

The tragic story of the second wife of England's Henry VIII is given a first-class treatment by Lubitsch, complete with opulent sets and some beautifully-shot exterior sequences. Henny Porten (Kohlhiesel's Daughter, Backstairs) gives a memorable performance as Boleyn, but the film really belongs to Emil Janning's (The Last Laugh, the Blue Angel), one of Germany's greatest screen stars, playing Henry. Jannings's bravura performance conveys Henry's decadence through his insatiable appetite for both food and women, but never reduces him to caricature or pure villain. Janning's also establishes the screen model for Henry that would be further developed by Charles Laughton almost fifteen years later in the Private Life of Henry VIII.