“Murnau’s directing? That’s what we have been referring to all the time when speaking of this film’s gifts, for which we are – there is no other term – grateful. It has everything, there is nothing more to be added. And the acting? Total perfection. One hesitates even to mention the famous name of Olaf Fönss on its own – so perfect is everything. And this is what proves his great mastery: that he still knew how to integrate himself, no, that he knew how to raise everyone up to his level. Nothing statuesque, nothing virtuoso here, instead, simplicity, greatness, discernment. Beside him the wonderful Gudrun Bruun, who could smile and knew how to be blissful in a way we have never seen before. And Conrad Veidt, who had moments when one could not help thinking of some new Parsifal. Erna Morena gave the most thankless, difficult, and for that reason perhaps most splendid performance: lying on a sofa over four acts, just being there, with a sad, so sad movement of the head, a completely distant gaze, a scarcely audible sigh – and with that flower-like beauty that reminds one of Renoir. Let someone even try to equal her.
What else? We have praised so much, that’s true. But then what is one to do? Some things simply move one. (Willy Haas, Film-Kurier, Nr. 277, 14.12.1920, in Wolfgang Jacobsen [et al.] (Hg.), Willy Haas. Der Kritiker als Mitproduzent. Texte zum Film 1920-1933, 1991)