An American Tragedy, German director-Hollywood émigré Josef Von Sternberg, was a bleak pre-Code drama, based on Theodor Dreiser’s 1925 famous novel.
It was a follow up to Morocco a popular movie, starring Marlene Dietrich (his muse) and Gary Cooper.
Though his parents are street evangelists, Clyde Griffiths (Phillips Holmes) grows up to be ab ambitious boy, despite life in the squalor.
He first works as a bellhop in Kansas City, but when he’s the passenger in a car that kills a little girl, Clyde fears he’ll be arrested.
His wealthy uncle Samuel Griffiths (Frederick Burton) gets Clyde a job at a shirt factory in upstate New York where Clyde becomes foreman of a department that employs only women.
He is attracted to Roberta Alden (Sylvia Sidney), known as “Bert,” and though company policy forbids socializing, they begin secretly dating on weekends.
Eventually, Clyde seduces the smitten Bert, even though he has already become attracted to Sondra Finchley (Frances Dee), the daughter of a wealthy, upper class family.
Clyde promises to marry him when she’s of age, but things change when he’s told by Bert that she is pregnant. With vague thoughts of drowning her in mind, Clyde takes Bert on a vacation in the Adirondacks.
While canoeing, he decides not to kill her, but shockingly, she accidentally falls into the river. However, instead of rescuing her, Clyde swims to shore, and Bert drowns.
Eventually, the police track him down and he is arrested, resulting in a trial that gains national attention.
Spoiler Alert:
While awaiting his execution, Clyde is visited by his mother, who begs him to tell her the truth. He shares that, while he didn’t kill Bert, neither did he save her, though he could have, because he wanted her dead. His mother, heartbroken, says it’s her fault for bringing him up in evil surroundings, neglecting him while working to save the souls of others.
The movie ends with Clyde being embraced by his mother through the bars of his cell.
The Sternberg-Dietrich feature Dishonored did not perform at the box-office, and Paramount New York executives sought for a vehicle to commercially exploit the “mystique and glamor” of the Sternberg-Dietrich productions.
While Dietrich was visiting her husband Rudolf Sieber and their daughter Maria Riva in Europe during the winter of 1930–31, Paramount hired Sternberg to make a big-screen adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s acclaimed novel, An American Tragedy.
The production was initially under the direction of Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, whose deterministic treatment of the novel was rejected by Paramount. Eisenstein withdrew from the project, but the studio, which had already heavily invested in the production, authorized a complete revision.
While retaining Dreiser’s basic plot and dialogue, Sternberg eliminated its contemporary sociological issues to present a tale of a sexually obsessed middle-class youth (Phillips Holmes) whose deceptions lead to the death of a poor factory girl (Sylvia Sidney).
Author Dreiser was outraged at Sternberg’s failure to adhere to his themes in the adaptation and sued Paramount to stop distribution of the movie, but he lost his case.
Images of water abound in the film and serve as a motif signaling Holmes’ motivations and fate.
The photography by Lee Garmes added visual polish to the production. However, Sternberg’s role as replacement director curbed his artistic contribution, and subsequently the film was compromised.
Sternberg expressed indifference to the mixed critical success it received and later banished the picture from his oeuvre.
When Dietrich returned to Hollywood in April 1931, Sternberg had been established as a top-ranking director at Paramount.
In the next three years, the richest phase of his career, he directed four of his greatest films, beginning with Shanghai Express.
An American Tragedy was famously remade by George Stevens in 1951, A Place in the Sun, an Oscar-nominated film with Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, and Montgomery Clift as members of the romantic triangle.
Cast
Phillips Holmes as Clyde Griffiths
Sylvia Sidney as Roberta Alden
Frances Dee as Sondra Finchley
Irving Pichel as District Attorney Orville Mason
Frederick Burton as Samuel Griffiths
Claire McDowell as Mrs. Samuel Griffiths
Wallace Middleton as Gilbert Griffiths
Emmett Corrigan as Belknap
Charles B. Middleton as Jephson
Lucille La Verne as Mrs. Asa Griffiths
Albert Hart as Titus Alden
Fanny Midgley as Mrs. Alden
Arnold Korff as Judge Oberwaltzer
Russell Powell as Coroner Fred Heit
Credits:
Produced, directed by Josef von Sternberg
Screenplay by Samuel Hoffenstein. based on “An American Tragedy”
by Theodore Dreiser
Cinematography: Lee Garmes
Production company: Paramount Pictures
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date: August 22, 1931
Running time: 96 minutes