Abdul the Damned

Set amid the turbulence of the Young Turk movement within the dying Ottoman Empire, Abdul the Damned was among the first films directed in Britain by Karl Grune, acclaimed director of 1923’s Die Strasse (The Street), who had fled Nazi Germany in 1933; the film also features starring roles for fellow German émigré and Pandora’s Box star Fritz Kortner, Scottish screen idol John Stuart, and Swedish silent-era heart-throb Nils Asther. Turkey, 1908: Sultan Abdul Hamid II becomes infatuated with Therese, a young Viennese opera singer and she is forced to give in to him to protect her fiancé, Young Turk Talak Pasha. Will the fervour of Talak’s popular opposition to the Sultan’s rule eventually lead to the monarchs downfall?