''An American Tragedy'' (1931) is a

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Josef von Sternberg. It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on

Theodore Dreiser Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mora ...

's 1925 novel ''

An American Tragedy ''An American Tragedy'' is a 1925 novel by American writer Theodore Dreiser. He began the manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned most of that text. It was based on the notorious murder of Grace Brown in 1906 and the trial of ...

'' and the 1926 play adaptation. These were based on the historic 1906

murder of Grace Brown Grace Mae Brown (March 20, 1886 – July 11, 1906) was an American woman who was murdered by her boyfriend, Chester Gillette, on Big Moose Lake, New York, after she told him she was pregnant. The murder, and the subsequent trial of the suspect, ...

Chester Gillette Chester Ellsworth Gillette (August 9, 1883 – March 30, 1908), an American convicted murderer, became the basis for the fictional character Clyde Griffiths in Theodore Dreiser's novel '' An American Tragedy'', which was the basis of the 1931 ...

at Big Moose Lake in upstate New York.''The American Film Institute Catalog Feature Films: 1931-1940'' by the American Film Institute, c. 1993 The novel would again be adapted in the 1951 Paramount release '' A Place in the Sun''.

Cast

Phillips Holmes Phillips Raymond Holmes (July 22, 1907 – August 12, 1942) was an American actor. For his contributions to the film industry, he was posthumously given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Early life, education and career Born in ...

as Clyde Griffiths * Sylvia Sidney as Roberta Alden *

Frances Dee Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American actress. Her first film was the musical ''Playboy of Paris'' (1930). She starred in the film '' An American Tragedy'' (1931). She is also known for starring in the 1943 ...

as Sondra Finchley *

Irving Pichel Irving Pichel (June 24, 1891 – July 13, 1954) was an American actor and film director, who won acclaim both as an actor and director in his Hollywood career. Career Pichel was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh. He attended Pittsburgh Cent ...

as District Attorney Orville Mason * Frederick Burton as Samuel Griffiths *

Claire McDowell Claire McDowell ( MacDowell; November 2, 1877 – October 23, 1966) was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 350 films between 1908 and 1945. Early years Claire MacDowell was born in New York City on November 2, 1877, the ...

as Mrs. Samuel Griffiths *Wallace Middleton as Gilbert Griffiths *

Emmett Corrigan Emmett Corrigan (born Antoine Zilles; June 5, 1867 – October 29, 1932) was a Dutch-born American stage and screen actor. Various sources give his birth year as 1867, 1868 and 1871. Corrigon was born as Antoine Zilles in Amsterdam, Holland, and ...

as Belknap * Charles B. Middleton as Jephson *

Lucille La Verne Lucille La Verne (November 7, 1872 – March 4, 1945) was an American actress known for her appearances in early sound films, as well as for her triumphs on the American stage. She is most widely remembered as the voices of the Old Witch in the 19 ...

as Mrs. Asa Griffiths *Albert Hart as Titus Alden *

Fanny Midgley Fanny Midgley (born Fanny B. Frier; November 26, 1879 – January 4, 1932) was an American film actress of Hollywood's early years, mostly in silent films. Biography Midgley was born Fanny B. Frier on November 26, 1879, in Cincinnati, Ohio. ...

as Mrs. Alden *

Arnold Korff Arnold Peter Kirsch-Korff (2 August 1870 – 2 June 1944) was an Austrian-born American Hollywood actor and director. He appeared in a number of German and Austrian films before moving to the United States and resuming his career in America. He m ...

as Judge Oberwaltzer * Russell Powell as Coroner Fred Heit * William Bailey as Reporter in Courtroom (uncredited) *

Ed Brady Ed John Brady (born June 17, 1962) is a former American football player. Brady was raised in Morris, Illinois, and attended Morris Community High School, where he led the Morris Redskins football team to a state championship. Brady played for ...

as Train Brakeman (uncredited) *

Richard Cramer Richard Earl Cramer (July 3, 1889 – August 9, 1960) was an American actor in films from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. Burly, menacing and gravel-voiced, Cramer specialized in villainous roles in many low-budget westerns, but is today ...

as Deputy Sheriff Kraut (uncredited) *

Claire Dodd Claire Dodd (born Dorothy Arlene Dodd; December 29, 1911 – November 23, 1973) was an American film actress. Life and work Dorothy Arlene Dodd was born on December 29, 1911, in Baxter, Iowa, to Walter Willard Dodd, a farmer whose family ...

as Gaile Warren (uncredited) * George Irving as Mr. Finchley (uncredited) *

Arline Judge Margaret Arline Judge (February 21, 1912 – February 7, 1974) was an American actress singer who worked mostly in low-budget B movies, but gained some fame for habitually marrying. Early years Arline Judge was born in Bridgeport, Connect ...

as Bella Griffiths (uncredited) * Guy Oliver as Simeon Dinsmore (uncredited) * Evelyn Peirce as Bertine Cranston (uncredited) *

Harry Stubbs Harry Oakes Stubbs (December 7, 1874 – May 9, 1950) was an English-born American character actor, who appeared both on Broadway and in films. He was born on December 7, 1874 in Southampton, Hampshire, England. Stubbs immigrated from England ...

as Court Clerk (uncredited) *

Nella Walker Nella Walker (March 6, 1886 – March 22, 1971) was an American actress and vaudeville performer of the 1920s through the 1950s. Biography The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Walker, she was born and raised in Chicago. In 1910, she marrie ...

as Hotel Guest (uncredited)

Background

Paramount Pictures purchased the film rights for

's 1925 novel ''

'' for $150,000. The widely acclaimed Russian director

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...

was hired to film an adaptation, with Dreiser's enthusiastic support. When Eisenstein was unable to procure studio approval for his "deterministic treatment," reflecting a Marxist perspective, he abandoned the project. Paramount, with $500,000 already invested in the film, enlisted Josef von Sternberg to develop and direct his own film version of the novel. Dreiser was guaranteed by contract the right to review the script before production, and complained bitterly that the Sternberg- Hoffenstein interpretation of his novel's themes "outraged the book." When the film was completed, it was clear that the Sternberg screenplay had rejected any interpretation attributing protagonist Clyde Griffiths' antisocial behavior to a capitalist society and a strict religious upbringing, but rather located the problem in "the sexual hypocrisy of the etty-bourgeoissocial class." As Sternberg acknowledged in his memoirs: "I eliminated the sociological elements, which, in my opinion, were far from being responsible for the dramatic accident with which Dreiser concerned himself." Dreiser sued Paramount Pictures to suppress the film but lost.

Reception

Film historian John Baxter wrote that ''An American Tragedy'' "met with mixed critical success. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' called it 'emphatically stirring," the '' New York Daily News'' wrote it is 'intensely dramatic, moving, superbly acted', but many other papers, recalling Dreiser's protest, found the film less intense that the original novel, which is undoubtedly the case." Marxist film critic Harry Alan Potamkin commented on "Sternberg's failure to understand Dreiser's larger thematic purpose: Before the story opens ternberg presentsrepeated shots of water disturbed by a thrown object. And throughout the picture the captions are composed upon a background of rippling water. Sternberg saw the major idea of the matter

heme Heme, or haem (pronounced / hi:m/ ), is a precursor to hemoglobin, which is necessary to bind oxygen in the bloodstream. Heme is biosynthesized in both the bone marrow and the liver. In biochemical terms, heme is a coordination complex "consis ...

in the drowning. How lamentable!" The film fared poorly at American theaters but was well-received among European moviegoers.

Theme

John Baxter identifies a thematic element in the struggle for human control over their destinies: Critic

Andrew Sarris Andrew Sarris (October 31, 1928 – June 20, 2012) was an American film critic. He was a leading proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism. Early life Sarris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Greek immigrant parents, Themis (née Katav ...

singles out the following scene for its thematic significance:

References

;Sources * * * *

External links