In a rare example of a remake surpassing its model, director Julien Duvivier gives definitive form to this classic tale of forlorn childhood, which he had filmed silent in 1925. Harry Baur plays the self-absorbed father with all his imposing authority and young Robert Lynen cuts deep to the desperate pathos of a lonely boy growing up in a loveless provincial household. A film of great tenderness and lyricism, with a final reconciliation between father and son to tear a sob from the stoniest breast.