“This is Conrad Veidt’s and Mary Philbin’s swan song for Universal, contracts of neither being renewed. The picture was produced as a part-talker, with dialog in the last reel only, but is released at Little Carnegie in the silent version, dialog reel apparently not standing up in opinion of U. heads. Paul Fejos was up against handicaps at the start, and with a story that is more foreign than domestic in brand, he sought to give it the German touch. Photography, of the subdued type as in Sunrise and Street Angel (both Fox), was one of the results, another the deliberate manner in which the picture moves.

(Variety, november 1929)