The tragedy is that Philip Holmes can't act. The lead male character is a spineless weasel to begin with, but Holmes' job is to make us sympathize on at least some level with his tortured choices. Because he fails to do so, we end up with a movie where we not only don't care about Clyde Griffiths, we loathe him. S'too bad, because Sylvia Sidney and Frances Dee are fantastic actresses. They didn't deserve to be saddled with such a stiff.
The narrative itself is hopelessly choppy and episodic. I'd like to see the 14 reels Sergie Eisenstein shot when he tried to make this movie before von Sterberg.
