A Lady to Love

Directed by Victor Sjöström and based on Sidney Howard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play *They Knew What They Wanted*, this pre-Code MGM drama stars Vilma Bánky as Lena, a San Francisco waitress who answers a marriage advertisement from a middle-aged Napa Valley grape-grower named Tony. Tony has sent her a photograph of his handsome younger hired man, Buck, instead of himself. When Lena arrives and discovers the deception, she goes through with the marriage anyway, drawn by the promise of a home and her growing attraction to Buck. Edward G. Robinson, still early in his screen career, plays the lonely Italian farmer with a tenderness far removed from the gangster roles that would soon make him famous. Bánky, the silent-era star opposite Valentino, made one of her last screen appearances here before her Hungarian accent ended her career in talkies. The film's copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.