Banned in Germany
If the German version was banned by the government in Germany in 1933, why was it banned? It had to be over content, because the technical filmmaking was superb.
It seems that the Nazis didn't like the fact that a femme fatale could destroy such a decent man. They had more of a motherly picture of women in mind, I guess. It might also be because von Sternberg, the director, was of Austrian-Jewish descent.