Olive Edens’ short story “Heart and Hand” formed the basis of one of Wyler’s first talking pictures. His interest in the mysteries of love and its consequences is manifest as rough-hewn fisherman Walter Huston takes a mail-order bride, Helen Chandler (of Dracula fame), who develops far more of a connection with his sensitive son Douglass Montgomery (billed as Kent Douglass). Walter’s real-life son John is credited with dialogue for the adaptation.