According to Jack Warner’s autobiography, Warner Bros. decided to hire Hungarian director Mihaly Kertész [Michael Cur­tiz] after Jack and his brother Harry were “laid in the aisles by the impact of Curtiz’s camera work” on Moon of Israel (Die Sklavenkonigerì). The Third Degree was the first film directed by Curtiz when he arrived at the studio in 1926. A famous theatrical melodrama written by Charles Klein in 1908, it had already been filmed twice, first by Lubin in 1913 and then by Vitagraph in 1919. Warners had acquired rights to the play, and many other outdated properties, when they purchased Vitagraph in 1925. Feeling compelled to take advantage of their acquisition of this library, Warners remade many of the old Vitagraph pictures (or at least reused the titles), simply because they already owned them. But in order to help bring The Third Degree up to date Warners made significant changes to the plot, introducing all of the circus background which would provide such rich visual material for Curtiz and his cameraman, Hal Mohr. Curtiz seemed to realize that his future career in America depended on making an impression with his first film, and Mohr, who would also work successfully with other émigré directors, notably Paul Fejos and Paul Leni, was quite willing to film the picture in an eye-catching, non-traditional manner. But despite Jack Warner’s recollecions of Moon of Israel, the multiple super-impositions, shadow effects, and elaborate camera movements which mark The Third Degree seem less influenced by that 1924 Curtiz film than by Der Letzte Mann and Variété, two dazzling UFA imports which had a great influence on Hollywood producers just as Michael Curtiz arrived there.

Richard Koszarski