he acclaimed German director made his first, masterful American film the same summer Warner Bros. was cranking out The Jazz Singer, the talkie that brought the silent cinema to a (literally) screeching halt. TIME thought Sunrise "picturesquely soporific." History thinks the story of a farmer who deserts his wife for the bright lights of the big city, then returns to her sadder but wiser one of the last poetic masterpieces of a dying cinematic era.—R.S.