The Merchant of Venice (1923 film)

The Merchant of Venice
Directed by	Peter Paul Felner
Written by	William Shakespeare (play) Peter Paul Felner Giovanni Fiorentino
Produced by	Peter Paul Felner
Starring	Werner Krauss Henny Porten Harry Liedtke Carl Ebert
Cinematography	Axel Graatkjaer Rudolph Maté
Edited by	Peter Paul Felner
Music by	Michael Krausz
Production company	Peter Paul Felner-Film
Distributed by	Phoebus Film
Release date	13 October 1923 (1923-10-13)
Country	Germany
Languages	Silent German intertitles

The Merchant of Venice (German: Der Kaufmann von Venedig) is a 1923 German silent drama film directed by Peter Paul Felner and starring Werner Krauss, Henny Porten and Harry Liedtke. The film is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. It was released in the United States in 1926 as The Jew of Mestri.^[1] The film was made on location in Venice, with scenes and characters added which were not in the original play. This is the surviving copy, being two reels shorter than the German version. The characters in the German retained Shakespeare's nomenclature, but in the American they were given new names sourced from the Italian work Il Pecorone, a 14th-century short story collection attributed to Giovanni Fiorentino, from which Shakespeare is believed to have drawn his idea. The film purports to be a return to the original, as an excuse for its differences from the play.