“No film toward the end of the silent era was shot with more pictorial style than this glowing and romanticized creation of a wholly mythological and delightful New York waterfront.” --James Card.
A tale of marriage and murder among sailors and waterfront hookers, The Docks Of New York was released about the same time as The Jazz Singer and was quickly relegated to an undeserved obscurity. Now recognized as early evidence of Josef von Sternberg's mastery of light and shadow, and an essential demonstration of the expressive potential of the silent film as visual art, Docks Of New York is considered by film historian Kevin Brownlow to be the greatest film von Sternberg ever made. “He achieves a feeling of warmth and humanity - he seems to care about his characters, instead of using them as in some of his sound films merely to form patterns of light and shade. Docks Of New York looks like a massed collaboration of the finest European and American directors, art directors and lighting cameramen” (in “The Parade's Gone By”).