Wednesday with Greta Garbo

Flesh and the Devil

Twenty-one year-old Greta Garbo, Hollywood’s last star to transition to talkies (with Charlie Chaplin), was negotiating a contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) to give her script approval as well as control of every film’s director, co-stars and cameramen when she made Flesh and the Devil. This—her third film in America—made the archetypical new, liberated woman a movie star.

As a movie, Flesh and the Devil is excellent. It is Garbo’s movie. Based on Hermann Sudermann’s novel The Undying Past, Garbo adds an element of mystery to the story of two men’s friendship. The men, played by steely, androgynous blond Lars Hanson and handsome, dashing John Gilbert, forge lifelong friendship through boyhood, soldiering and marriages to two women. In shared scenes of laughter, shock and moral dilemma, Gilbert and Hanson convey genuine warmth and love.

As a lone seductress, Garbo unveils desire without adornment. Her narcissistic character bewitches woman and man alike. Her delayed reactions evoke…