Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This is really a superb film. I have seen quite a few silents and most of them do look rather dated now to me. But this one transcends time due to its beautiful sets, expert camera work, wonderful direction and best of all we have a truly luminous performance by Greta Garbo as the leading lady. Never have I see her looking more beautiful and appealing as in this movie.One of the things that is missing with many actors and actresses today is their lack of ability to portray good facial expression in a scene to display emotion. It's not enough just to speak, you have to show too. Its one of the things I always look for in performance in any movie old and new.Garbo is wonderful here at appealing to the audience with her range of expressions. Normally I would miss dialogue. But it's so well produced and finely acted that I found I hardly missed it at all. Conrad Nagel was excellent as the leading man and had great chemistry with Garbo. The rest of the cast do justice to the movie too. And all in all it's well worth seeing, especially if you want to find out why the movie going public fell in love with Greta Garbo. It's all in here.

This is, quite possibly, the silent film to present to those who are resistant to silent films. First, the characters earn our affection from the very beginning -- scenes of the beautiful Garbo crying during an opera, Nagel becoming entranced by her. Within the first five minutes, you are drawn into them. Garbo becomes more beautiful as the years go by -- we see a beauty that is modern; Garbo would be considered beautiful in the 21st century, unlike many stars from the earlier days. (I mean, could Theda Bara cut it in 2009? Mary MIles Minter? Pola Negri?) Conrad Nagel plays the male lead quietly but effectively -- almost all of the acting here is restrained.Beyond the beauty of Garbo, one has to really credit Fred Niblo for directing this film. The film is essentially Hitchcock before Hitchcock. This film has elements of "North By Northwest," "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "The Thirty-nine Steps," and, most surprisingly, "Notorious." You have the "wrong man" theme, the guilty, obsessive love, the elegant, tricky villain, the conflicted heroine, Hicthcockian camera movements, some unexpected plot twists, some scenes of real suspense, and even a darkly humorous bit toward the end regarding a corpse. Very nicely done.

"The Mysterious Lady" (MGM, 1928), directed by Fred Niblo, stars the seductive Greta Garbo as Tania Federova, a woman of mystery who in reality, is a Russian spy who seduces her victims. The story opens at an opera house where Captain Karl Von Raden (Conrad Nagel) finds himself being seated next to a woman (Garbo) expecting the arrival of her cousin who never comes. After the opera, Karl notices the attractive woman he sat next to now standing on the curb in the rain. She informs him that she has no money for taxi fair, so he agrees to escort her home himself. While at her apartment, they immediately embrace and have a romantic affair. Afterwards, Karl is told by an "Uncle Eric" that his encounter with a woman he met at the opera had been pre-arranged and that she is a spy. When the two meet again on a train, Tania tells Karl she loves him, but he refuses to believe anything she says. Knowing that Karl has in his possession valuable secret plans, she decides to carry out her orders and steal them, leaving him a note that they are now enemies. Now that it is known that he had an affair with a lady spy who has taken the secret plans, Karl is met with a court-martial, stripped of his military uniform and sent to prison. After a carefully planned escape, Karl heads for Vienna posing as a musician at a Case, to avenge Tania and retrieve those secret plans.The small list of supporting players feature the sinister-looking Gustav Von Seyffertitz as General Boris Alexandroff, Tania's chief of Russian Intelligence; Edward Connolly, Albert Pollet and Richard Alexander. Interestingly, both Garbo and Von Seyffertitz would return to spy duty in 1931 in separate motion pictures: Von Seyffertitz as the head of the secret service to Marlene Dietrich's X-27 in "Dishonored" (Paramount); and Garbo starring as "Mata Hari" opposite Ramon Novarro. "The Mysterious Lady" is good, not great, silent spy melodrama with Garbo perfectly cast in the title role, looking alluring even with her wavy curly hairstyle, a few years before Garbo's transformation to her more famous long straight hair. Conrad Nagel is satisfactory as her co-star, but no threat to Garbo's more famous leading man, John Gilbert, who might have made a go in the part of Karl. While "The Mysterious Lady" was distributed to home video in 1990, accompanied by the same scoring that originated from 1973's public television presentation of "Movies-Great-Movies," hosted by Richard Schickel on WNET, Channel 13, in New York City that commemorated MGM's fiftieth anniversary, Turner Classic Movies premiered this silent melodrama June 5, 2002 (not a world television premiere as host Robert Osborne announced), accompanied by an all-new soundtrack conducted by Vivek Maddana. Although the new score is at times satisfactory, I feel that it is totally unnecessary to score a silent movie that has been scored already, especially when the old score succeeds in setting the mood and pace to the story. With the setting of "The Mysterious Lady" taking place in Vienna, the new Maddana score sometimes gives the impression that the story takes place in Venice, Italy. When premiered on New York television October 5, 1973, THE MYSTERIOUS LADY was clocked at 98 minutes. The TCM print currently shows at 89 minutes. After watching "The Mysterious Lady," for the first time in many years, this seldom seen Garbo silent melodrama is just the way I remember it. (***)

If you care for Garbo's sound movies go back and see what made her such a sensational international star. This one is a delight. She is most seductive with the grace and glide of an animal. One of my favorite of all of her films. You can easily see why people became Garbomanics. There was nothing like her on the screen...before or since.