And if that's not enough to recommend it, the immortal Pola Negri gives a well-rounded performance and her star appeal is abundantly clear even at this early stage of her career.

The film itself doesn't have much to recommend it beyond Miss Negri, but the remastered print I viewed on YouTube was quite good and -with a nice piano score - is a pleasant enough way to see the embryonic Pola absolutely poised to take the world by storm.

Although often described as a "vamp" by film writers, it certainly does a disservice to this legendary star to limit her appeal to this clichéd stereotype for Pola is so much more in every performance.

Although the "vamp" outline is contained in the film - young woman steals money from a beau, and runs away from her family to the big city were she became a famous dancer and steals a married man from his wife & daughter - Pola's character retains the audience's sympathy and does the right thing in the end.

It's easy to see why Pola would shortly take Europe and America by storm and let's hope more of her filmography continues to be rediscovered and saved.

It's hard to say much about this picture, because quite frankly it appeared to be the worst print I'd ever seen; out of focus, bleached out, suffering from decay, and with sizeable slices missing off all sides of the frame so that the ends of titles got cropped, heads went missing off the top of the screen, and characters disappeared altogether to left and to right. The intertitle text on screen didn't always bear a close relationship to what was actually shown afterwards (e.g. characters supposedly regretting their actions or terrified by their predicament), and I did wonder whether some kind of attempt had been made to 'improve the morals' of the story by editing the titles and/or action for the original American release. But it really didn't seem to be a terribly good film.

It was the first time I'd seen Pola Negri, and she was undoubtedly lovely (when you could actually see her!) She appeared to be rather better at acting than most of the rest of the cast, as well; and her character was the only one to show flashes of wit and decency into the bargain. This makes it all the harder to understand, to be honest, why this 'wild beast' is apparently being punished and moralised over for the twin crimes of repaying the money she borrowed and rejecting the advances of a married man...

Very little actually seems to happen during the running time of this film, and what does happen (the stern father beats his daughter; the cad attempts to seduce the dancer; the abandoned wife contracts a convenient mortal illness and dies, allowing the remorseful husband to cover his eyes over her grave) tends to be predictable enough to raise a groan. Dmitri's actions seem odd to say the least: he fails even to recognise his former girlfriend when they meet, yet is so incensed by the fact that she pays back the borrowed money as promised that he goes out and shoots her?

I found the picture to be hard work to concentrate on (not helped by the lack of clear focus) and unrewarding. It's a curiosity to see Pola Negri in her Polish years, but nothing more.