FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

The Shadow of the Silents – ALady to Love
The story of Sjöström’s last film in Hollywood has mostly been told as a story of
failure, though the fact that the film has recently been rediscovered has made it
difficult for later historians to judge the work itself. 1 In the following, I will not
make any judgements of the work as such, but rather try to frame the film historically
as an early sound film. This question will be approached first by presenting
the two language versions that were made, but then also by discussing
the way that the film expresses the transition to sound in various ways, in the
use of dialogue, sounds or music, as well as the way that it still keeps certain
stylistic traits from earlier films, thus also expressing the transition from silent
cinema. By the specific problems of language and culture that the sound brings
along, this film also evokes themes that seem to encompass Sjöström’s whole
career as a European director in American exile.
Bengt Forslund noted that the project seems to have been conceived all of a
sudden, that the short time lapse between the original idea and the shooting
was probably not ideal, as this was Sjöström’s first sound film, and that “not
much has been noted about the shooting, but I don’t think that Sjöström was at
ease – not even with the actors”. 2
After having spent a sabbatical year in Sweden, Sjöström returned to Hollywood
in September 1929. He was then immediately offered to direct a film of a
play by Sidney Howard, They Knew What They Wanted (1924), which had played
on Broadway from November 1924 to October 1925, and which had won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1925. Sidney Howard himself had presented a synopsis to
MGM in early September, followed by a first script version – the working title
was “Sunkissed” –and received approval from Thalberg a month later, on 15
October 1929. Sjöström started shooting on 8 November.
A Lady to Love premiered on 28 February 1930, and was politely received by
the critics, though, as Forslund has noted, The New York Times complained about
its lack of “pictorial mobility”, and The Telegraph followed up: “Mr Seastrom has
directed the piece with a great deal more patience than imagination. He has put
into it every word, every gesture, every shading; nothing has been left undone.”
3 However, the acting was almost unanimously praised; Edward G. Robinson
enjoyed a first breakthrough, and even the heavy accent of Vilma Banky
was considered as “charming”. 4 But A Lady to Love would, as already noted,
become the director’s last film in Hollywood. On 24 April 1930, Sjöström left: he