“Das Geheinis des Abbe X was the second film directed by popular German matinée idol Wilhelm Dieterle, and the first production of his new company, Charha-Film, which he founded with his wife, actress and scenarist Charlotte Hagenbuch. The restoration of the film is being based upon a b/w nitrate print with French intertitles from the Cinémathèque Royale, an 8-reel safety negative made from a nitrate print with German intertitles from Gosfilmofond, and an incomplete b/w acetate print and negative with Czech titles from the Berlin Bundesarchiv, which was made from a b/w nitrate print from the Prague archive. The Russian and the Berlin prints were filmed in the same way; scenes of the Brussels copy were often shot from a slightly different angle. The film’s original German intertitles will be reconstituited using the Gosfilmofond material and the German censorship cards of the trailer conserved by Koblenz Bundesarchiv”.

(Catherine A. Surowiec (a cura di), The European Film Archives at the Crossroads, Projecto Lumière, Lisbona, 1996)

“Wilhelm Dieterle’s strong and manly art and Marcella Albani’s suave charm intermingle here in a splendid natural setting, to depict a drama where love and duty, compassion and hate, purity and crime merge together in a very interesting story”.

(Cine-Gazzettino, 23 September 1929)