NANA

US, 1934, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Anna Sten, Lionel Atwill, Mae Clarke, Reginald Owen.
Directed by Dorothy Arzner, George Fitzmaurice.

A film of historical interest - not of great appeal for contemporary audiences. It is a brief adaptation of Emile Zola's novel. (William Diertele's biography The Life of Emile Zola with Paul Muni was to appear two years later - and a comparison with this present film would be Rene Clement's version of Zola's Gervaise, 1956.)

The film was meant to be a star vehicle for Samuel Goldwyn's find Anna Sten. She performs well but does not have the presence and vivacity of a Greta Garbo - with whom she was compared. She had only a minor career in Hollywood in the thirties. There is an effective supporting cast led by Lionel Atwill. Nana has to go through the motions of being an ordinary young girl, suffering decline, going to ruin, rising from the depths to being a high society courtesan. Anna Sten does this quite effectively. There is the range of characters expected from this kind of grim rags to riches amoral melodrama - Nana's friends and prostitutes, the Madam, the clients, lecherous aristocracy, disappointed heroes. The film traces through the basic themes of society, poverty, oppression, survival, success as well as probing the values of French society.

The film is also of interest for its director Dorothy Arzner, the main woman director working in Hollywood in the thirties. Nana raises many of the questions posed by Zola in his penetrating novels - but has only an hour and a half of romantic melodrama time in which to do it.