The international success of The Monastery of Sendomir led to the making of another costume drama with a non-Swedish setting, this time, Renaissance Florence. Love's Crucible and The Phantom Chariot in particular were the works that led to Sjöström's Hollywood invitation. Sjöström and Hjalmar Bergman collaborated on this script about a young woman, Ursula, forced into marriage with an older man she hates. Intending to kill her husband, she buys what she thinks is poison, but, surprisingly, he dies before drinking the mixture. Ursula is accused of murder and in a climatic scene must withstand a test by fire to prove her innocence. Later film criticism points out that the film's integration of the cinematography into the dramatic structure was unprecedented-and must have been a particular goal of the Sjöström-Bergman collaborations.