Les commandes de la page sont traduites. Les titres des films restent tels qu’ils figurent au catalogue. Les textes éditoriaux et les descriptions des sources sont en anglais.

← Retour aux films

Drama

The Case of Lena Smith

Surviving fragment
4 minThe four-minute DVD fragment is separate from the 80-minute feature catalogue record; current access has not been checked. Sources des versions ↓

A Hungarian servant’s attempt to retain her child is crushed by class power, bureaucracy, and the authority of a wealthy family.

Explore the fragment and film record ↓ About the surviving fragment

The four-minute DVD fragment is separate from the 80-minute feature catalogue record; current access has not been checked.

Langue
English
Explorer les films par ambiance Drama

Édité par Monocurator

A working woman's bowed profile sits beneath an immense layered bundle of bureaucratic papers.

Image: Monocurator · source · Original Monocurator artwork

The surviving fragment and film record

The feature is largely lost. Edition Filmmuseum 105 includes a surviving fragment listed at 4 minutes; the 80-minute catalogue figure describes the feature, not that fragment. Josef von Sternberg’s largely lost film survives chiefly through a recovered fragment and documentation. That fragment is valued for its force, but it cannot stand in for the missing feature.

About the surviving fragment

Approach the surviving material as a fragment. Concentrate on what its framing and movement actually show, then use documentation only to mark the absent narrative around it. The Austrian Film Museum lists the fragment at 4 minutes in its 2016 DVD edition. This is not a complete presentation of the feature. Playback, current stock and shipping have not been checked.

À savoir

Une brève note non exhaustive The film is largely lost; includes child separation, class exploitation, institutional cruelty, gendered power, and incomplete context.
Momo's Note Peut contenir des révélations sur l’intrigue Qui est Momo ? → (S’ouvre en anglais)
Ouvrir la note ↓ Fermer la note ↑

A recovered scene can be complete as an experience and incomplete as evidence. I want to feel its pressure without pretending that intensity restores the film around it.

— Momo

Momo thinking about this film

Générique et versions

Carte des versions

Wikidata 80-minute listing Catalogue record · 80 min 80 minutes reproduces the single duration stated by the source. The listing does not identify a cut, score, territory, frame rate, source element, or restoration. The 80-minute figure describes the feature, not the surviving fragment listed by Edition Filmmuseum 105 at 4 minutes. Source : Wikidata — The Case of Lena Smith Vérifié le 2026-08-22
Edition Filmmuseum 105 — surviving fragment Surviving fragment · 4 min · home video The Austrian Film Museum lists the fragment at 4 minutes in its 2016 DVD edition. This is not a complete presentation of the feature. Playback, current stock and shipping have not been checked. Source : Austrian Film Museum — Edition Filmmuseum 105 (first edition 2016) Vérifié le 2026-10-25

Sources des données

Pour poursuivre la découverte

A surviving fragment is documented; it is not a complete presentation of the feature. Explorer d’autres fiches de films →

D’autres films de 1929 → (S’ouvre en anglais) D’autres films de Josef von Sternberg → (S’ouvre en anglais)

Poursuivre la découverte du catalogue →