Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (also known as Sunrise) is a 1927 American silent romantic drama film directed by German director F. W. Murnau, and starring George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "The Excursion to Tilsit", from the collection with the same title by Hermann Sudermann.

Murnau chose to use the then new Fox Movietone sound-on-film system, making Sunrise one of the first feature films with a synchronized musical score and sound effects soundtrack. The film incorporated Charles Gounod's 1872 composition Funeral March of a Marionette, which was later used as the theme for the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65).

Sunrise won the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929. Janet Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in the film (she also won for her performances in 1927's 7th Heaven and 1928's Street Angel). In 1989, Sunrise was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress for films that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The 10th anniversary update of the American Film Institute's best 100 films in 2007 placed it at No. 82, while the decennial Sight and Sound poll of 2012 for the British Film Institute named it the fifth-best film in the history of motion pictures by critics and 22nd by directors.

Although the original 35mm negative of the original American version of Sunrise/was destroyed in the 1937 Fox vault fire, a new negative was created from a surviving print.

Synopsis

A vacationing Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston) lingers in a lakeside town for weeks. After dark, she goes to a farmhouse where the Man (George O'Brien) and the Wife (Janet Gaynor) live with their child. She whistles from the fence outside. The Man is torn, but finally departs, leaving his wife with the memories of better times when they were deeply in love.

Actors