FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

The Shadow of the Silents – A Lady to Love 123
main difference between the two versions concerns the central scene of the night
after the wedding. The American version shows Buck and Lena in a quick embrace,
followed by a fade-out, marking the lapse of time. The next shot shows
her sitting at Tony’s bedside in the morning. The German version is much longer,
and follows Sidney Howard’s script more closely. Here, the embrace is followed
by a cut-in on Tony in his bed, calling out in his sleep: “Mitzi, Mitzi...”
(the name of the Lena character in this version). A cross by the bedside is
doubled by a shadow on the wall, as a device strengthening the message. There
is a cut back to Buck and Mitzi embracing, as he says “Mitzi”, echoing Tony.
She tears herself away from him and runs off screen to the left. He runs in the
opposite direction and in the next shot, is seen entering the house where he
looks into Tony’s bedroom. A new cut-in on Tony in his bed, sleeping, follows.
Buck closes the door, puts out the light and disappears. Mitzi comes back into
the house, and as she tries to find her way in the dark, the earrings, which she
had got from Tony and taken off earlier, fall to the floor. They are then shown in
close-up after a cut, a device characteristic of the silent era. She picks them up
again, enters the bedroom and looks at the sleeping Tony, standing by his bed,
brightly lit in the dark room. Then she goes and looks out of the window where
Buck is standing outside, but then walks away. The next shot corresponds to the
second shot in the American version, with her sitting at Tony’s bedside in the
morning.
It is obvious that the Production Code – in spite of Thalberg’s approval to the
script – had led to censoring the events at night. However, the more explicit
German version leaves less room for fantasies on what may have happened
between shots, as Buck’s and Mitzi’s first embrace is interrupted by Mitzi leaving,
and they then occupy different spaces through the rest of the sequence, and
Buck is shown to walk away in the last shot. Here, the embrace may be interpreted
as a metonymy. In addition, the German version changes the portrayal of
Mitzi by actually showing her to be more firm, which makes the psychological
character portrayal more plausible. The consequence of the prudency in the
American version, which led to the abandoning of the original script to confirm
to the demands of the Code, is thus, ironically enough, that the ellipsis rather
seems to suggest quite clearly that the couple actually spent the night together.
This question of censorship, however, important as it may be not least for the
overall interpretation of the different film versions, only covers part of the specific
questions that may be evoked in this transitional period of cinema. The
transfer to sound film is just as important as part of this transition, also in motivating
the different film versions.