The Yellow Ticket

"The Yellow Ticket" (aka "The Devil's Pawn") was directed by Vicor Janson and Eugen Illes as a German project shot partially in Warsaw. A story of a Jewish girl forced to hide her identity in order to attend medical school in St. Petersburg, the movie is a melodrama of multiple oppression. Lea, as played by Negri, is at a disadvantage as a woman, an orphan and a Jew -- and yet has immense persistence and an insatiable ambition of becoming a doctor. The film includes more than one plot twist (the final one further complicating the issue of Lea's identity), but it's first and foremost a testimony to a spirit impossible to suppress.

Director: Victor Janson, Eugen Illés, Paul L. Stein

Cast: Pola Negri, Harry Liedtke, Victor Janson, Adolf E. Licho, Werner Bernhardt, Guido Herzfeld, Margarete Kupfer, Marga Lindt

Audience-only score — full critic data not yet in the ReelXO vault.