Frances Marion was entrusted by Thalberg to write Garbo's first sound film. In 1930, The Voice, heard for the first time in the role of Eugene O'Neill's tragic heroine, was news in itself, and director Clarence Brown made his own excellent use of it by retaining the monologue-like nature of the role. Garbo was well cast as the Swedish girl who makes her way as a prostitute until she returns to her father's fishing barge, falls in love with a seaman (Charles Bickford), and then must pay for her past. Brown creates an effective, theatrical atmosphere, relying on the enclosed settings of barroom and barge to frame some superior characterizations-notably, Marie Dressler as an aging waterfront denizen and George F. Marion as the sentimental old father. It is a measure of screenwriter Marion's stature and her nature that she brought her friend Marie Dressler out of impoverished retirement for this role, which inspired her to write a similar character in Min and Bill that won Dressler an Academy Award.