Norman Zierold, in Garbo, his autobiography of Greta Garbo, mentions the willingness of M.G.M. to increase its budget on the films of Greta Garbo now that she had previously starred in three earlier films. The studio had originally slated Dmitri Buchowetsky to direct and Richard Cortez to star in the film "Love". "On seeing the early rushes the studio heaads were dissatisfied. They decided to scrap the footage, replace Buchowetsky with Edmund Goulding and Cortez with John Gilbert....The cost of the shifting of forces was nearly a quarter of a million dollars."
During May of 1927, the periodical Film Daily ran the announcement Goulding Directing Love, "Dimitri Buchowetski has been replaced by Edmund Goulding as the director of Anna Karenina, in which Greta Garbo, will portray the title role. Release title 'Love'."
The film was photographed by William Daniels.
Sven-Hugo Borg chronicled his having observed John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, "They were cast as lovers in 'Love' (Anna Karenina), and out of that picture came not only another screen triumph for Garbo, but the flowering of what I believe to have been the only real love of her life." He continues, "I believe with all my heart that John GIlbert is the only man who ever touched the deep wells of passinate emotion which lie buried in the breasts of Garbo." Borg alludes to Garbo not having to wanted marry Gilbert and of her keeping the details of the romance from Mauritz Stiller. "She was in the arms of Jack Gilbert when I first saw her. The air was surcharged. The atmosphere glowed."
The periodical Film Daily during 1927 imparted, "Svend Borg, interpreter for Greta Garbo, has been assigned to the cast of "The Bugle Call". John Gilbert during 1927, in addition to "Love", also appeared in the films "Twelve Miles Out" (eight reels) directed by Jack Conway and starring Eileen Percy and "Man, Woman and Sin" (seven reels), directed by Monta Bell and starring actress Jeanne Eagles. Greta Garbo in Love silent Film
The extratextural discourse that included fan magazines exploiting the Garbo-Gilbert affair during 1927 alluded to it while reviewing the performance of John Gilbert in "Man, Woman and Sin" (seven reels), which the periodical Photoplay saw as being of interest because of the actor and actress being paired together, but concluded, "Miss Garbo needn't worry over Miss Eagles", it having purported that the film and part played by the actress was tailored to substitute for Greta Garbo ie. it being a John Gilbert vehicle in that stars as commodity fulfill the audience expectations of genres as they develop. "Monta Bell knows his city room. After that the film disintegrates into cheap melodrama. "Man, Woman and Sin", by virtue of it being lost silent film is included in the volume Lost Films written by Gary Carey, Museum of Modern Art. A comeback film for which actress Jeanne Eagles was "extrememely well recieved", Gary Carey writes, "Few of her films have been preserved and thus has been lost the record of the most heralded actress of the decade."
While situating John Gilbert in a genre that contained torrid love scenes with the headline "Bell in Hot Tilt Over Seductive Siren", the periodical Moving Picture World traced the work of director Monta Bell after he taken Greta Garbo from a developing genre driven by the Vamp character to a genre of driven by the quest of two isolated lovers, with actress Jean Eagles providing "Much interest, especially among women." Moving Picture World chronicled the now lost film with "The director Monta Bell- he wrote the story too- has his job cut out for him in guiding his two lovers through the maze of their emotional eruptions for the least padding here, or the meerest off-shade there would have resulted in extracting the sauce of plausibility from the seasoning."
The film was photographed by Percy Hilburn. The periodical Close-Up sheds some light upon technique searched for by film detectives of lost silent films,"Use is made of a mix consisting of a fade-out and iris-in. With brightly lit futuristic sets, this effect has a certain'chic', like a neat fashion plaque from 'Vogue'." Bell may have been aiming for the moderninity later present in the Greta Garbo-John Gilbert film "The Single Standard".
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