Are you in the mood to discover what scared them in the past? Once upon a time, people were really worried about the evil effects of hypnotism. No, they didn't fear a nation of helpless victims clucking like chickens. But they did fear the dreaded mind control of…Svengali!

Now, if you watch the film Svengali, you will discover the origin of a few tropes you may have taken for granted: the manipulative mastermind, the easily-swayed victim…oh, and the trilby hat, although it doesn't feature in the movie.

Trilby hats were named for Trilby, a character in the story. In fact, the original novel, by George du Maurier (Daphne's granddad), was called Trilby

The story has been labelled 'classic anti-Semitism', but that doesn't do justice to its hair-raisingly obnoxious qualities. See if you can spot the odious gender attitudes…and the conceited self-image of the English 'artists'…I think there's plenty of offensiveness to go around here. This in not to say the acting isn't terrific in this 1931 film version. I would also argue that this film could be read another way: it's possible to see Svengali and Trilby as truly lovers, albeit tragic ones.

At first, I didn't realise Svengali was supposed to be Jewish. I took them at their word when they said Polish. So the story reminded me of Dracula, which is also very much about the 1890s English (and American!) fear of foreigners from Eastern Europe, and that they'd somehow steal all the good-looking girls…well, sure, if the aforesaid Eastern Europeans all looked like Frank Langella at 35…who could blame them?

Anyway, see what you think about this influential film.