Lea Lyon, the daughter of a rabbi, lives happily with her father in their Gulicinu village, but there are rumblings of war. Soon, the village is overrun with the Imperial troops of the Russian Czar, with Constantine in Imperial command. He is attracted by the beauty of Lea and commands her to come to his quarters. She refuses and he is outraged. He orders the townspeople barred behind their doors and the village burned. Though she loves her honor above everything else, she can not bear to see the villagers suffer, and makes the lonely walk through the village to the Inn.
Acting
Ivan Mosjoukine's smoldering villainy without a word.
Cinematography
Burning village sequences that still shock.
Direction
Sloman squeezes operatic drama into 78 minutes.
Director
Edward Sloman
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mary Philbin was fresh off The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Universal rushed this into production to capitalize on her 'damsel in distress' image.
This is one of the few Hollywood films of the era to center Jewish identity without caricature—though it still frames Lea's sacrifice through Christian martyr imagery.
US
