This film has gone down in history as one of the great turkeys of all time, and to a certain extent that reputation is justified. Anna Sten, the émigré Russian starlet Samuel Goldwyn tried to build up as the next Garbo, was a beautiful woman and her English diction wasn't as bad as it's made to be. The problem is that there was no way Hollywood in 1934 could do justice to Emile Zola's scathing account of sexual debauchery in Second Empire Paris. The nudity is gone, most of the lovers are gone, the lesbian relationship with Satin (Mae Clarke) is barely hinted at. Nana, as played by Sten, is a far more sympathetic character than she is in the book. She shoots herself rather than rotting to death from smallpox (a euphemism for syphilis?) No mention is made of her illegitimate child or the path of death and destruction she leaves in her wake. The film is an interesting if dated curio, worth watching at least once, but proof that not every film from Hollywood's "Golden Age" is a gem.
Review of Nana
