Josef von Sternberg (director) THE CASE OF LENA SMITH [1929] Photo

The Case of Lena Smith. 1929. Photo. [Los Angeles]: Paramount Pictures, [1929]. Vintage original 8 x 10″ (20 x 25 cm) black-and-white photo. Strips of non-restoration brown paper on verso, overall just about fine.

Director Josef von Sternberg‘s last silent film, The Case of Lena Smith, is ranked by film historians as among the lost masterpieces of the silent era and the holy grail for archivists who sift through film repositories. In 2003, Japanese film historian Komatsu Hiroshi unearthed a four-minute fragment of The Case of Lena Smith in Manchuria, China, reviving interest in the film. (Wikipedia)

The little surviving fragment contains some utterly dazzling imagery.