Purely Joyful Movie!

Best movie ever!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions. Sizzle. Hot. Gilbert and Garbo are one well matched duo. The title looked enticing, and certainly not forecasting a boring film. Is this pre-World War I? The germanic soldiers and aristocratic names suggest that it is. Does a noble young man have to give military service?Enter that fox Garbo. She appears dressed in 1920s era cloche hat and shortened length fashions when she enters, depicting the period after that war. I will overlook this fashion design inconsistency. Flesh and the ... ... She falls into lust with Gilbert, he of the unknowing and naive personality. He even ignores a teenage female admirer, and proceeds to fall into lust with that siren. Along comes the siren's elderly husband, who looks like he is incapable of having any physical relationship with his wife. He figures that Gilbert can, but all Gilbert thinks about is that he is hopelessly in love. He's lucky that the husband doesn't shoot him right then and there on the spot. A duel ensues. Hubby gets whacked. Gilbert goes to Africa for penance. Meanwhile, Gilbert's best bud is back home looking after the unfortunate widow, but marries her. Unknowing, naive Gilbert comes back and discovers this piece of bad news. Did the siren cheat on her original husband before Gilbert came along? Maybe. I am a degreed historian, actress, singer, dancer, fashion designer, stage makeup artist, film critic and movie reviewer.

Saturday December 1, 2:00 p.m. The Castro, San FranciscoA Fool For Love ...A jewel from MGM's golden age, Flesh and The Devil (1926) is the story of Felicitas (Greta Garbo), an irresistible but moody and shallow woman who sends both her husbands, Count von Rhaden (Marc MacDermott) and Ulrich von Kletzinak (Lars Hanson, The Scarlet Letter 1926, The Wind 1928) to the field of honor with her obsessed lover Leo von Sellenthin (John Gilbert, The Merry Widow 1925, The Big Parade 1925). Garbo smolders as the aloof and toxic beauty every man desires, while Gilbert attempts to set her on fire with his penetrating gaze.Produced by Hollywood's 'Wonder Boy' Irving Thalberg, adapted by Benjamin Glazer from Hermann Sudermann's novel, beautifully photographed by William Daniels and directed by Clarence Brown (The Rains Came 1939, The Yearling 1946), Flesh and The Devil exerts a potent and surprising sexual dynamism which furthers the theory that all men are stupid, and all women are evil.

The fine cast makes this melodrama work, and turns a rather routine plot idea into a good and sometimes memorable movie. John Gilbert and Lars Hanson are a good combination as the male leads, and Greta Garbo is convincing as always, as the woman at the center of everything. Clarence Brown's direction also contains some good touches.Gilbert and Hanson work well as the two lifelong friends who fall in love with the same woman. Gilbert's more passionate, hot-blooded character forms a believable and interesting contrast to Hanson's innocently earnest portrayal of his loyal, unsuspecting friend. Garbo's character is treated roughly at times by the story and by some of the other characters, but she more than rises to the occasion, and as she often does, she makes what could have been a stereotyped love interest into a complex and sometimes tormented character.Barbara Kent also does well in a smaller role, and her character (the younger sister of Hanson's character) is used effectively at some important moments that help develop the main characters. Brown adds a lighter tone to a couple of sequences when suitable, and he provides a good pace. Given the fairly simple story, it might run a bit long, but otherwise it is well-crafted and effective.

"Garbo multiplied the cinema's power of suggestion to infinity, and the gaze so deep that every spectator there found what he soughtshe spoke a different language to every man" Ado Kyrou, 1957FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1926), the first film that the director Clarence Brown made with "an immigrant actress" who Greta Garbo had been before its premiere occurred to be one of the very best films for its time. People flocked to see it, Garbo became so eminent that she could almost dictate the terms in film industry, her relationship with John Gilbert turned out to be no baseless gossip. However, since then, 80 years have passed, not many people know how important the premiere of the film was, how historic it turned out to be in Garbo's career. Yet, it seems never to be fading since there are STILL many people who watch this film in its recent DVD release. Let us look at some aspects that make it a real classic, not only for its time, but for the general history of cinema.THE CINEMATOGRAPHY by William H. Daniels is magnificent. Probably, anyone who has seen the film will never forget its most famous lighting effect when Gilbert lightens Garbo's cigarette in the shadowy garden. Another stunning moment is the scene of Leo Von Harden and Count Von Rhaden's duel. It is played in silhouette against the vast sky and, as a result, we can see not so much people but rather their shadows. An excellent moment that remains in memory is the waltz of Felicitas and Leo on the ball at Stoltenhof. The scene is filmed so memorably that it is hard to be skipped. Yet, the image of the "Isle of Friendship" where two best friends swore eternal loyalty as children and then went to fight in a duel is presented in an unforgettable way. Such pictures never fade in memory.THE CAST are very talented, real elite of the time. GRETA GARBO and JOHN GILBERT: Gilbert, who was Hollywood's leading man after the death of Rudolph Valentino, does a great job here as Leo Von Harden. His love to Felicitas (and to Garbo in real life) is so natural that everybody will get an impression that it is real what they can find on the screen. The love scenes between the two are particularly natural, hardly to be found elsewhere in films! If there is chemistry between the stars in a film, it is, without any doubt, in FLESH AND THE DEVIL. Greta Garbo performs so well that no wonder people saw her (many for the first time) and very soon started to admire her as an actress. She is excellent in the role and her acting still does not appear to be dated whatsoever! The whole of Garbo's sequence is marvelous but if I were to choose which scenes are particularly memorable, I would pay attention to two brilliant moments: first, the one at the train station when Leo and Felicitas meet for the first time and Leo picks the flowers that fell onto the ground and gives them to her, and, second, the moment when Leo and Ulrich, two lifelong friends, go to fight in a duel. Viewer's attention is directed towards Hertha, Ulrich's virtuous sister. She does her best to persuade Felicitas to take steps to stop this madness that a duel between two best friends appeared to be. How beautifully Garbo shows a change of heart... I admit that I have never seen such a performance before! Therefore, the words by Kyrou about Garbo, entailed at the beginning of my review, appear to accurately fit here. OTHER CAST: Besides Garbo and Gilbert, there is a great Swedish actor, Lars Hanson, with whom Garbo played in one film before FLESH AND THE DEVIL (this was Mauritz Stiller's THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING). He is memorable as Ulrich, particularly in the final sequence when friendship occurs to be, indeed, sacred. The fabulous acting of the three (Garbo, Gilbert and Hanson) is expressed in a brilliant scene of the three meeting after Leo's return from Africa and drinking a toast. Other cast give very good performances, too, including Barbara Kent as Hertha and Marc Mc Dermott as Count Von Rhaden.OTHER MEMORABLE MOMENTS include a number of humorous scenes that are, in no way, dated. It is important to state that many silent films may seem "silly" because today's viewers laugh at the scenes that were not supposed to be funny. It is caused by the challenge in people's sense of humor. However, it does not appear to be in FLESH AND THE DEVIL. Humor is retained and still serves its purpose. Consider the pastor seeing twins and believing to be drunk (he sees one girl in double). Or the final shot ... "You won't bid me goodbye?"FLESH AND THE DEVIL is a film that I would recommend to anyone to see. It is a real classic and, in this regard, it may be considered similar to other classics of the time, like SUNRISE (1927), BEN HUR (1925) and THE LAST LAUGH (1924). But there are three more aspects about it that make the movie a must see - William H. Daniels' cinematography, Clarence Brown's direction and Greta Garbo's magnificent silent performance together with her alluring beauty. See it so that the film can last forever in your most beautiful memories. 9/10!