This is a beautiful example of the film-makers craft. Josef von Sternberg and Harold Rosson have created a thing of aesthetic beauty coupled with an interesting - if not especially deep - character study of two people George Bancroft ("Bill") and Betty Compson ("Mae)". The camera loves both of them - and interestingly for the late 1920s, it is not shy in illustrating the beauty of the male physique as well as the beauty of both Compson and Olga Baclanova ("Lou"). The story isn't really the main feature of the film: "Bill" is a stoker on the docks where he encounters a potential suicide victim ...