The film belongs to Emil Jannings who is simply magnificent as Frederick 1st. He succeeds in engaging our sympathy despite his tyrannical, authoritarian nature and his scenes with the excellent Werner Hinz as the future Frederick the Great are stunning. Excellent performance also from Georg Alexander as a foppish Prince of Bayreuth, and from the always marvelous Friedrich Kayssler as von Katte’s father who stoically accepts his son’s execution as an expediency. This movie was banned by the allies (so called “liberal democracies”) until 1958.