 The screenplay writers, Gladys Lehman and Fannie Hurst, wrote the story in straightforward chronological order.Director John M. Stahl had a clear, easily comprehensible directing style, making sure that scenes lasted a long time and including mainly far-shots and relatively few close-up scenes.These techniques increase the effect of objectivity in the film and places its emphasis on the tragic aspects of the story itself rather than on its emotional effect on the characters.