The last of Murnau's three films in Hollywood, originally released in a
butchered part-talkie version by the studio; happily the surviving
print is silent and rather closer to the director's conception. A
variation on the themes of his masterpiece Sunrise, it concerns a wheat
farmer's son whose marriage to a girl from the city leads to conflict
with his father. The studio-built city is a menacing prison, but
Murnau's immaculate framing and expert lighting lend even the
beautiful pastoral locations an intense bleakness, a mood deepened by
the melancholy performances (Torrence is superb as the father). So
remorseless is the dark logic of the narrative that even the
studio-imposed happy ending scarcely tarnishes it. Very moving.
