Wednesday with Greta Garbo

“The Kiss” (1929)

Scott Holleran

Nov 16, 2022

This is the rare Greta Garbo movie that’s good entirely on its own. Garbo is stunning as a woman every man wants. She’s married to an older, preoccupied man on the brink of bankruptcy and can barely resist a handsome, amorous lawyer. Meeting him in museums with kisses in closeups, Miss Garbo is the anguished, lonely wife Irene.

Conflicted, she sends the attorney away despite his gallantry. She returns to the old man, who has secretly had her followed by a private detective without her knowledge. Irene comforts her husband in their gorgeous Art Deco home. Making peace with marriage—unaware of the seriousness of his financial trouble—her voracious yet restrained Irene is a progressive depiction of woman given the picture’s 1929 release.

Lush and lustrous, with a screenplay by Hans Kraly from a story by George M. Saville, The Kiss (shot in 40 days before—released after—the stock market crashed), is Greta Garbo‘s last silent movie and among her most profitable pictures, according to biographer Robert Gottlieb. When a young tennis fan (Lew Ayres, just before performing as Lewis Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front) pursues her with stars in his eyes, the plot’s tossed into a violent, dramatic turn. Gowns by Adrian, who glorifies the silent movie star, give everything a flair. This silent, black-and-white motion picture, set in Lyon, France, dramatizes the sense in which sex is life.

Wednesday with Greta Garbo

The Painted Veil