Dreiser disapproved of von Sternberg’s An American Tragedy. He argued Von Sternberg and screenwriter Samuel Hoffenstein played down the grinding forces of social and financial pressures and accentuated the love story of Clyde Griffiths’ infatuation with a wealthy socialite and the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Roberta Alden. Dreiser sued and lost.
Von Sternberg retorted that he followed the text, particularly the picnic episode when Griffiths murdered Alden. But while Dreiser is ambiguous, von Sternberg is definitive. The significant change in the narrative is Clyde’s candid admission of his diabolical plan. Looking at Roberta, he says, “I brought you up here to drown you. But I’m not going to do it now.”
Dreiser writes that they spread sandwiches on newspaper. A small change is that Roberta munches a sandwich at the picnic. As Clyde takes photographs of her, Roberta smiles for Clyde’s camera. It’s the only time that viewers get to see picnic food.
Roberta doesn’t get it. Confused, she reaches out for him, and when Clyde tries to stop her, the rowboat tips spilling them both into the lake. For a moment, Clyde starts to swim away. He hesitates momentarily and considers rescuing Roberta, but knowing she cannot swim, and then swims away.
This decisive moment, according to Von Sternberg and screenwriter Hoffenstein portrays Clyde as a murderer.
The cast: Sylvia Sidney as Roberta Alden; Phillips Holmes as Clyde Griffiths.
See Josef von Sternberg. An American Tragedy (1931). The screenplay by Samuel Hoffenstein is based on Dreiser’s novel (1925), Theodore Dreiser. An American Tragedy. New York; Library of America 1925, rpt. 2003; also, George Stevens. A Place in the Sun (1951). Screenplay by Michael Wilson and Harry Brown based on Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925). Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdshcL7Y83c