[La Chienne] is quite a technical achievement. At a time when sound was in its puling infancy, there are atmospheric existential noises; when lenses were primitive, there is considerable deep focus; when equipment was heavy, there is much effective camera movement. And there is more: a story in which conventional concepts of good and evil are treated with a flexibility bordering on iconoclasm—which was most innovative of all….

La Chienne is far from a great film. Based on an insignificant novel, it has a rather preposterous plot; its characters are, for the most part, either too stupid to follow up on options that any fool would grab at, or, like the hero's wife, so simplistically exaggerated as to lose all humanity. Even key details are unconvincing….

La Chienne is fascinating, though, for a variety of nonartistic reasons. First, as a lesson in how unseriously cinema was taken...