• It does not come close to touching von Sternberg’s all-time of a year the year before in 1930 (The Blue Angel, Morocco)—but there are still enough elements to land it (barely) into the archives
  • Based on Theodore Dreiser’s novel of the same name—and he sued. For the longest time after The Place in the Sun (1951—George Stevens, Liz Taylor, Montgomery Clift) this 1931 version/adaptation was impossible to find. It isn’t on the level of Stevens’ film
  • A nice shot from von Sternberg early in a night club—the camera just drifts though almost like a patron who had had a few drinks
  • Sloppy titles 10 minutes into the film catching us up on the dense story that can’t possibly fit in the shorter running time here
  • von Sternberg is one of the great designers of mise-en-scene—obstructing the frame—there are only a few shots here where he lets that show—one is in the forest letting the leafs block the frame
  • a fatal flaw of the film is Phillips Holmes at Clyde Griffiths. He’s so weak. I mean Clift makes it an entirely different film with his complexity. Sylvia Sidney, on the other hand, as the tragic Roberta Alden is wonderful – along with City Streets in 1931 this is the first archiveable film for Sidney
  • the single best sequence in the film is the bare winter tree branches covering the couples faces (above)
  • at the 30 minute mark at the party- von Sternberg rotates his camera around some flowers framing and then reframing the couple (like Renoir used to do) on both sides
  • plenty of meaningless title cards
  • ends with a far-too-long courtroom sequence
  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 1931