Aage, son of a wealth widow, is deep in debt. Although he promises to change his ways, he continues to deceive her, even resorting to forging her signature and stealing from her to finance his hedonistic lifestyle with lover Anna. Aage’s mother eventually shows him the door. Can there be any hope of reconciliation? In this milestone of Danish film history, director August Blom introduced some innovative stylistic techniques that were to have an enduring influence on cinematic syntax. The sense of drama is enhanced by his use of back lighting and mirrors to achieve perspectival depth. A key sequence is the one in which the mother catches the son stealing – a situation for which the audience has already been prepared by the clever build-up of previous scenes. “Temptations of a Great City” is, incidentally, the film that put the great stage actor Valdemar Psilander on the cinematic map.