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Fragmented Pieces: Writing the History of the Lost Hollywood Films 107
thought it might have something to learn – or at least to fear – from European
cinema. Any European active in Hollywood might act as a kind of industrial
spy, with privileged access to their former cultures of production.
Lacking evidence in form of a print, it remains unknown whether Sjöström
was right when he feared that little would be left in the Hollywood version of
Lagerlöf’s original conception of her story. However, at least, The Tower of Lies
contains – according to the cutting continuity script – a type of dissolve familiar
in other Sjöström films; a dissolve of the kind establishing a parallel between
two different images of one or more persons, by means of which the previously
established identity or person is dissolved into the other. This dissolve takes
place when the daughter returns and condenses into three shots the transformation
of the girl with her changing guises: the returning girl of the present, the city
girl and the girl in the role assigned to her by the father in her childhood games.
No 125 (Reel 5) MS Glory
Dissolve to
Party Dress
Dissolve to
Empress Dress
126CS Jan in door
127 Empress Dress
Dissolve to
Glory 30
Analogies are established between Glory’s different identities, as imagined by
Jan; they represent different or even contradictory aspects of her personality as
they have been established throughout the plot. These contradictions all converge
in the image of the father looking. It is through his eyes that the spectator
discovers the multiple identities of the daughter. This kind of dissolve recalls
those in He Who Gets Slapped, but just as much in crucial dissolves from the
Swedish period, like the one already mentioned from The Monastery of Sendomir,
but perhaps especially those in Love’s Crucible.
The plot of Love’s Crucible unfolds in the late Middle Ages. Charged with
having poisoned her husband, Ursula, the female protagonist, must walk
through fire towards a large crucifix in order to prove her innocence. An initial
shot in which she is about to embark on her ordeal is followed by an image of a
crucifix. A dissolve transforms Christ on the cross into her dead husband, who is
brought back to life. The following dissolve returns her husband to an earlier
stage of his life as the cross fades out. Back to Ursula in the fire, whereby she also
dissolves to a previous period of her life. After a cut, you see her husband walking
towards her with his arms outstretched. As they take each other’s hands, he
steps back and leads her to the right. After a dissolve back to the fire, Ursula’s