JOSEF VON STERNBERG

In his 1929 Hollywood production The Case of Lena Smith, director Josef von Sternberg vividly brought to life his youthful memories of Vienna at the turn of the last century. Critic Dwight Macdonald called it 'the most completely satisfying American film I have seen'. But only a short fragment survives – Lena Smith is one of the legendary lost masterpieces of American cinema. Assembling 150 original stills and set designs, numerous script and production documents as well as essays by eminent film historians from Europe, the USA and Japan, the book reconstructs Sternberg’s dramatic film about a young woman fighting the oppressive class system of Imperial Vienna. What once was deemed a 'lost film’ re-emerges as a multilayered text study of Sternberg’s artistic concepts and of the silent era’s production.

Published by the Austrian Film Museum.