Sirk had previously directed this Ibsen play on the stage, but his film adaptation for UFA is a highly cinematic work in which can be found many of the characteristic elements of his later films. Sirk has recalled, “Angling is terribly important: I discovered this for the first time with Pillars of Society. The angles are the director's thoughts. The lighting is his philosophy.” Sirk defuses the suspense of Ibsen's play while he heightens the social criticism inherent in the story of a wealthy European (played by Heinrich George, Germany's leading stage actor) whose small-town existence is threatened by the return of an American associate. Sirk emphasizes class conflicts and stultifying small-town values, as he was to do in later films (e.g., All I Desire). In the theme of the American friend, he develops a thread that will continue through To New Shores and La Habanera into his American films, that of the influence of the “wild west” on traditional European values.