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
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