The first film made in the U.S. by the internationally acclaimed German actor Emil Jannings, this melodramatic account of the decline of a bourgeois bank functionary recalls the classic LAST LAUGH and prefigures THE BLUE ANGEL.
Milwaukee cashier August Schiller (Jannings) is entrusted with the task of delivering some valuable bonds to Chicago, but loses them to seductress Mayme (Phyllis Haver). He meets her on the train, and when they get to Chicago she gets him drunk in a cafe, persuades him to accompany her to a hotel,
and then robs him. Schiller tries to put things right the next morning, retracing his steps and confronting Mayme in the cafe. But her lover and partner in crime smashes a chair over his head, and Schiller next regains consciousness on the railroad tracks, where he's being relieved of his papers
and valuables. In the ensuing struggle, Mayme's lover is pushed in front of a speeding train, leading to an ironic case of mistaken identity: His mangled body is identified as Schiller's, and the police assume that the dutiful employee died while fighting off a robber. Ashamed to reclaim his
identity and confess his foolishness, Schiller drifts into a marginal life of increasing poverty, cleaning parks, selling chestnuts on the street and eventually become a beggar. The film ends as a blizzard rages, with the ragged Schiller peering through the windows of his family's home, then
disappearing into the storm. Jannings went on to make several more films in the U.S., but it was his misfortune to arrive as the sound era loomed: His thick accent doomed his career in American movies, and he returned to Germany in 1929. leave a comment