After having made nine American silents, Sjostrom’s Hollywood career ended in 1930 with his first talkie, A Lady to Love. On the basis of his sound films (he also adapted Hjalmar Bergman’s play Markurells i Wadkóping in 1930 upon his return to Sweden and directed the swashbuckler Under the Red Robe in the UK in 1937) it could be argued that Sjostrom was one of those directors who did not quite make the transition to sound. A Lady to Love is indeed hampered by an immobility common to many early sound films, by a limited setting for the action of the film, and by relying too much on dialogue as the major means of expression, leading to some heavy overplaying on some parts. But there are some very memorable moments, such as the wedding scene, where the camera pans over the silent faces witnessing the ceremony in a way that resembles the way Sjostrom depicts trial scenes in Tosen fràn Stormyrtorpet and Name the Man. The director sometimes also uses the limited space of the action to the film’s advantage, with unexpected points-of-view and ingenious cutting. And ultimately the film becomes a very moving tribute to love and sacrifice. Actually Sjostrom directed not three but five sound films – A Lady to Love was simultaneously shot as Die Sehnsucht jeder Frau with Banky and Robinson repeating their performances in German, and Markurells i Wadkoping was also filmed under the title Vater und Sóhne with the same Swedish crew but with different, German-speaking, actors.

Jon Wensgtróm, Cinemateket-Svenska Filminstitutet