Greta Garbo's Movies Get the TV Guide Treatment, Part 2

Continuing from last week's post...  In recent weeks I've been remembering how, as a teenager, I  searched out Greta Garbo's films at 2 a.m. on the local lower-power TV station in Indianapolis....

 Today, we have three more movies in a  series of TV Guide style capsule summaries for Greta Garbo's movies.  If you would like to learn the origins of each film, here's a link to a previous post about the films on today's list. Today's films are all from the silent era.

                                            "The Temptress"

Like "Torrent," the movie released before it, "The Temptress" is  based on a melodramatic novel by Vicente Blasco Ibanez.  Garbo is a Marquess this time, which is a nice change from Countess, and she still gets to go to masked balls. Elena is pretty poison. She's already caused a man in her past to go bankrupt, and now at least three men are struggling for her attention: a nobleman, a thug, and an architect who builds dams. Two of the men fight a whip duel and the films ends with two men who still have to fight it out later. 

Do you suppose it's the hat?

The Temptress is both surprised and sorry that anyone got hurt duirng when the rivals for her love got hurt during their duel with whips. 

 

"Flesh and the Devil"

In "Flesh and the Devil," Garbo's character Felicitas is in a Bad Bromance. Well, it works out well for the bros, actually, but as for Felicitas (whose name means "good fortune"), not so much.   [Note: If you want no hints or spoilers, you can stop reading till you go to this video on the free Daily Motion website and watch the film, which has a nice music soundtrack.]

This movie also has a duel, but this time it's pistols and not whips, and it takes place on an icy lake. Garbo is badly-behaved for most of the film. The only other female character encourages her to change her ways, and she does so at the last minute. The film ends dramatically; one of the characters plunges through the ice into the chilly water of the frozen lake, but I won't tell you who. 

These two remember how close they were before that bad woman separated them. 

Okay, I can't keep the secret any more. It's Garbo. Garbo fell through the ice. 

       "Love"             

"Love" (1927) is the silent-era version of the Tolstoy novel "Anna Karenina." Garbo will go on to star in the sound version in 1935. 

Summary:  One of the most common plots of the modern romance novel came from Anna Karenina, except the original contains Terrible Consequences, because -- know -- Leo Tolstoy.  A married woman, Anna, is propositioned by a handsome Count, who doesn't realize that the woman at the inn is married, and to an important man in the government at that. The Count apologizes, and Anna vows to behave. But then Fate throws the two together  again. . .

                           Her cheatin' heart is tellin' on her. 

Anna, who's been away with her lover, has come back with birthday gifts for her young son, Sergei, with whom she'll have a tender moment.  

Bonus:  If you want to experience pre-cable television of the 1960s and 1970s as it sounded in the wee hours, here's Firesign Theatre's "TV or Not TV" segment from the album "How Can You Be in Two Places at Once if You're Not Anywhere At All."

Next week: More great Garbo silent films

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