A poor factory worker, employed by a wealthy uncle, falls in love with a beautiful heiress but his happiness and promising future are jeopardized by a previous affair with a coworker he impregnated.
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Stars: Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney, Frances Dee.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021607/
Watching this now because of a recent dvd sale. Beautiful print.
Antecedent to George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951, 8) with Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters and Elizabeth Taylor in the corresponding roles.
I'm surprised this is von Sternberg. But IMDb voters agree with me: among his 33 directed feature films, this ranks 24th by rating, which is 6.6 with 490+ voters. His "best" is The Blue Angel ('30, both versions). Then again, I've rated 5 other of his films, and I only liked 1 of them, and that's for the stars, not the film overall: Macao ('52, 7).
This suffers by comparison with the Stevens version. Somehow it feels as though JvS has made a documentary outlining the facts of the case rather than a film to show the conflicts of the character.
One big difference, here PH declares his love for SS; in '51 MC hedges that, making lust the more appropriate word. He appears to change his heart when he meets FD; in '51 it was clear MC never really valued SW for more than physical pleasure.
MC conveyed the weakness of the character much better than PH. ET was somewhat more compelling an attraction as the rich girl, but FD is quite beautiful and "in love with" PH.
JvS's use of title cards to advance the story doesn't help. So we're also suffering from proximity to the Silent era.
The trial claims that SS had been hit in the head by a camera. I remember a camera, but not SS being struck by it. Next time try to watch for that.
I find it suspect that the novel is called An American Tragedy. Why American? Is this somehow unique to the US that a young man wants to advance out of poverty (mission work) to the upper crust (factory owner uncle's lifestyle)? Apparently the novel was based on a real case.
I was interested because this film/novel is referenced more than once in my travels, the most famous being in Horse Feathers (1932), when Groucho Marx is in a canoe with Thelma Todd, he observes to the film audience, "You know, this is the first time I've been out in a canoe since I saw The American Tragedy."
