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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

best movie i've ever seen.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Bill Roberts is a stoker on a ship. While in port for one night, he finds prostitute Mae attempting to drown herself. He rescues her and steal some clothes for her. They spend the night at the bar. He tries to convince her that life is worth living and marries her. She abandons the life of prostitution. She hates that he's going back to his ship and struggles against her suicidal thoughts. He can't take his job and jumps ship. He returns to find Mae has been arrested. She gets sentenced 30 days for the stolen clothes. He arrives in time to take the blame. He gets 60 days and she vows to wait for him. It's a tough romance of two people with very little who find salvation with each other. It's simple but touching. The style isn't too melodramatic and the acting is surprisingly natural. I wouldn't call it gritty but it has a sense of the downtrodden.

Some of my most cherished impressions come from filmmakers who have this unique ability, as I have discovered, to paint a beautiful image with the notions that give rise to it built-in; it has to do with how a source outsources itself to itself and in that space creates a visible illusion, that is to say creates a living theater in which she is both author and player. Tarkovsky. Mizoguchi minus the melodrama. Storytelling in these cases is nothing more than our proxy in a world made of stories; something's got to be unfolding on that stage for us to be able to sift inside. Sternberg has given me one such film before this, so that alone ensures I will be always interested in what he had to say. But now and then in my journeys through these otherwise visionary makers I encounter a film like this; perfectly well-drawn, with a story finely crafted, fine acting, but I just don't know what to do with it.It's a straight romance between these two people who were never too good and never all bad, who made they choices they could. They are hurt or embittered, but sail through as best they can. Before they meet she has already given up and let sink.The story behind is more interesting; the woman is saved by him from death, and is thus given a new lease, a new life to be reborn into - he tells her her sins were all washed away in the slush - and she then turns for guidance to this man with the life-wisdom of sailing; who toils in the coalblack bowels of a ship, and now and then surfaces above for a night in the shared life. What he can teach her is this: life as the transient cycle of constant renewal, between anonymous work and small pleasure, between suffering and grace. The world shared between these two people is an incredibly rich construct, it suggests passage inside. The passage begins with a watery reflection suddenly rippled as the woman jumps into water. We don't see the action, the life going out of the world, only how it ripples across the surface. It's magic cinema.Unfortunately for me, Sternberg doesn't swim in these dim reflections. The rest of the film is written in crystal-clear waters. You can look down and see everything swimming where it's supposed to. Oh, it's perfectly fine as is, but it's all floating on the surface; the hidden streams and ebbs that move these people are forgotten in lieu of the more pressing but ultimately mundane social anxieties of the waking world.Is he going to stick with her, is he going to leave? More importantly, has she learned what was worth for him to leave behind?

Docks of New York, The (1928) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Impressive melodrama benefits from some strong performances and some terrific visuals. The film tells the story of Bill Roberts (George Bancroft) a man who lives down on the docks who ends up saving a woman (Betty Compson) from killing herself. Over the period of a day he saves her life, then the two get to know one another before getting married hours later but neither of them know what the future might hold. The plot of this film is pretty simple and in many ways it's not too original but that doesn't hamper the film too much as director von Sternberg has such an amazing eye that each scene contains something fresh even if the story in that scene isn't anything new. I'm not sure how much a better story would have helped overall but it might have benefited in a few ways including the two actually falling for one another. In many ways this film plays out like a lonely males fantasy of him just happening to save a beautiful woman and then she gives him a chance of winning her heart. Being made years before the Code went into full effect allowed the director to show off some darker moments to both characters as it's made clear in a very funny scene that neither person are virgins and that they've both had their share of wild moments. What's most impressive about the direction here is his visual style, which is easily the most impressive that I've seen from him. Just take a look at the scene where Bill saves the woman. The fog is laid on very thick making the scene come off almost like a fantasy sequence and the way von Sternberg edits the thing makes it seem like some sort of strange dreamland. The way the girl is seen, pulled from the water and eventually carried home are all shot very darkly with very little light and what light there is comes mainly from the reflections off the fog. I loved the way von Sternberg shot the scene where the woman comes to and is introduced to the man who saved her. I loved where the camera was placed and how the lighting once again plays a very important part. The atmosphere is a very thick one as you can feel how dirty the docks are and all the people there seem like the type you'd actually find living and working there. Bancroft delivers a very good performance in a role he has no problem playing. The toughness of the character is very believable with Bancroft in the role but he also handles the more quiet and tender moments. Compson has the harder of the two roles as her character is much darker but she has no problem making us care for her. The two don't look like the types who would be together but their performances are so good and the two act so well together that they make us believe. While the film is far from flawless it's well worth watching for the performances and directing.

For me, this comes a close second to "Underworld" in Sternberg's films: the twists and turns of the melodramatic plot become ultimately a little too much for me to swallow (a twist too far?), and I found some of the camera devices simply distracting, but even so the film is more or less won by virtue of the impressive acting from all concerned. Betty Compson (who was soon to receive a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her role in the part-talkie "The Barker") stands out as the fragile, cynical girl who has "had too many good times" already but allows herself to believe in the possibility of redemption; Baclanova is memorable as the petty officer's deserted wife, while George Bancroft is a cheerful, callous but not unkindly Colossus of a stoker. The weary, sensitive features of Gustav von Seyffertitz, in a small role as the threadbare Bible-basher who ministers to this godless 'flock', also make a strong impression. The film is almost all atmosphere, but it is atmosphere well-done.