bkoganbing A rather silly melodramatic ending spoils this Warner Brothers feature about the unreasoning prejudice against German Americans during World War I. As we learned more and more of Adolph Hitler's intentions you can bet that Jack, Harry, and Albert shelved this particular item.At the turn of the last century Barbara Stanwyck meets and marries German immigrant Otto Kruger and at first they're happy. Kruger in fact has a good job teaching chemistry at a college.All that changes when World War I starts and Stanwyck and Kruger suffer a series of setbacks and tragedies culminating with Kruger losing his citizenship and being deported. Sound familiar? And then the two meet again in France during the war. What happens I won't reveal, but it's kind of off the wall. I guess the moral of the story was don't marry a German.Stanwyck delivers a good performance and Kruger underplays his tragic role beautifully. Still I think this film deserved a better ending.

henri sauvage The First World War saw the debut not only of new military technology, but also new weapons of psychological warfare. It was the first war fought with means of mass persuasion as well as mass production. To get the American public in the proper fighting spirit for their inevitable entry into the war, the authorities deliberately and uncritically passed along British propaganda which wildly exaggerated or just plain fabricated German atrocities. (Sadly for all concerned, real German acts of brutality, especially in the conquered Low Countries, gave this propaganda an air of plausibility.) It's unfortunate that, given its time and circumstances, this movie can only hint at the pervasive ugliness of these manufactured images of the gleefully nun-raping, baby-bayoneting "Bestial Hun", and the vicious persecution it inspired against German immigrants.Though the glimpses it does show are often harrowing, as the story tracks the collapse of the blissful marriage between a professor (Otto Kruger) from Germany who teaches at a small college, and his American wife (Barbara Stanwyck), under the pressure of the growing hatred and intolerance they face from almost everyone around them. Even if the plot's predictable and the final twist is pretty contrived, and with few exceptions the acting and direction are about what you'd expect from a time when talking pictures were only four years old, I still have to give Warner Brothers some credit simply for having made a film -- even a low-budget "weeper" like this -- showing at least in some small way how war can corrode our humanity on the home front, too.The other major thing this picture has going for it from my point of view is, of course, Barbara Stanwyck: In the moments when she subtly transcends what could otherwise have been just another mawkish, pedestrian melodrama, you can clearly see a great actress who's just beginning to hit her stride. She even manages to make the somewhat over-the-top final moments watchable, if not quite believable.

Fred_Rap This poignant and graceful doomed-love weeper deals with a facet of American history rarely explored. In a beautifully restrained performance, Barbara Stanwyck plays a Daughter of the American Revolution who marries gentle German immigrant Otto Kruger. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, they become victimized by anti-German sentiments.With tasteful understatement and an unusual attention to period detail, director Archie L. Mayo paints a vivid tableau of social intolerance that must have been quite daring in its time (the scars of the Great War were still fresh in '33). The writers, unfortunately, couldn't resist a nosedive into Mata Hari-like spy machinations, an eleventh hour plot contrivance that strikes an indelicate note. Even so, the film's quiet sensitivity stays with you long after.With Ralph Bellamy (as the inevitable jilted boyfriend), Ruth Donnelly, Laura Hope Crews, and Clara Blandick.

Neil Doyle BARBARA STANWYCK gives a very sensitive performance as a perfectly normal young woman whose marriage falls apart after the hostility of townspeople towards her German husband during the period of WWI. She does a commendable job as a woman who suffers the consequences when friends and colleagues destroy their relationship, showing a sweet and vulnerable side that she seldom exploited in later films.It's a subtle look at a German-American marriage at a time when Germany was launching into World War I. OTTO KRUGER is cast as her German husband, and he too gives an understated, sympathetic performance that is compelling to watch.Poor RALPH BELLAMY has another one of his hapless roles as a man he describes as "an unromantic bachelor." Nevertheless, he brings energy and eagerness to his role of a man in love with Stanwyck.Stanwyck has a much softer look and is very attractive in the lead. An interesting little item from her early career that exploits her warmth, charm and sincerity as few early films ever did. Trivia note: It strikes me as unusual that the director is Archie Mayo, more noted for the light, fluffy romantic comedies he did for most of his career at Warner Brothers rather than the sober melodrama with social significance that he does so well, complete with a downbeat ending.