It is based on Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel An American Tragedy and its 1926 stage adaptation, which were inspired by the historic 1906 murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette at Big Moose Lake in upstate New York.

Fraternization is strictly prohibited, but Clyde, frustrated by being shut out of his uncle's social circle, soon begins seeing Roberta "Bert" Alden, a newly-hired stamper recently arrived in the city from her parents' upstate farm.

The secret relationship between Clyde and Bert flourishes during spring and summer, when they spend most of their dates outdoors, but when winter comes, he pressures her to allow him to meet with her in her room, where he seduces her.

Shortly after this, Clyde meets the beautiful debutante Sondra Finchley, and he quickly falls for her and begins to spend less and less time with Bert.

After traveling around for a few days using pseudonyms, Clyde takes Bert out on a lake in a canoe, but he is unable to bring himself to push her overboard.

Dreiser, who was guaranteed by contract the right to review the script before production, complained bitterly that the Sternberg-Hoffenstein interpretation of his novel's themes "outraged the book."

When the film was completed, it was clear that the Sternberg screenplay had rejected any interpretation attributing protagonist Clyde Griffiths' antisocial behavior to a capitalist society and a strict religious upbringing, but rather located the problem in "the sexual hypocrisy of the [petty-bourgeois] social class.

"[4] As Sternberg acknowledged in his memoirs: "I eliminated the sociological elements, which, in my opinion, were far from being responsible for the dramatic accident with which Dreiser concerned himself.

In An American Tragedy, the beautifully articulated sequence of the police capturing Clyde Griffiths succinctly illustrates Sternberg's sense that life is dominated by forces so far beyond human control as to have an ultimately natural, even cosmic dimension.

Holmes furtively opens the note in a secluded spot where his expression cannot be seen by the factory girls, and a smile of triumph flickers across his normally phlegmatic features.