The President was Dreyer's first film, not the least pleasing visually, but the least personal. Still, there are many anticipations of what is to follow. The setting of romantic episodes in a rowboat on a lake—beautifully photographed—is a device later used more elaborately in Day of Wrath. The intercutting of the hero being honored with his daughter preparing to escape prison is quite in the straightforward style of all such passages in later Dreyer. And the concept of honor and duty versus nature and love; along with that of the hypocrisy which results from attempting to both save face and have heart; can already be detected in this rather conventional melodrama of a respectable father who betrays his trust out of compassion for his disreputable daughter.

Leaves from Satan's Book follows the theme of betrayal throughout the ages, in four separate stories, a procedure (un)inspired...