Having already established a reputation in Hollywood, Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg was invited to Berlin to make a sound film with prominent star Emil Jannings. Von Sternberg made significant changes to Heinrich Mann's original story, giving the social critique a more complex psychological inflection expressed through the competing performance styles of Jannings and Marlene Dietrich, obsessive repetitions of spaces and camera movements, and total conviction in the plastic force of the cinematic image. English subtitles available.