Though Children of Divorce was originally directed by Frank Lloyd, a substantial portion of the film was reshot by Sternberg, then an assistant director at Paramount. “You can't miss the shadow language of his scenes,” Janet Bergstrom wrote. “Clara Bow and Gary Cooper are so young and exquisitely beautiful, lovers off-screen and on.” The melodrama traces the intertwining fates of three offspring of broken homes, played by Cooper, Bow, and Esther Ralston. An impoverished prince (Einar Hanson) squares the triangle, creating a romantic dilemma that is resolved not in divorce but in death.