Harakiri

In 1919, between the first and second (and, as it turned out, only) episodes of his crime serial The Spiders, Fritz Lang directed this 80-minute version of Madame Butterfly. It’s beautifully designed pictorially but lacks the urgency and craft of his early masterpiece Destiny, released two years later. Lil Dagover plays the poised (if not very Japanese-looking) heroine who gets involved with an American naval officer. (JR)

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