Anne-Kristin Wallengren, for Nordic Academic Press, only indirectly refers to the work of Gosta Werner and the restoration of lost silent film in the article, Welecome Home Mr. Swanson-Swedish Emigrants and Swedishness on Film. "There is the still extant film Storstadfaror (Perils of the Big City, Manne Gothson, 1918), in which a young man goes to America and at the end of the film, returns to Sweden, rich; however, while this was one of the very few films made in the 1910's to show America in a positive light, it is also significant that his was only a supporting role." The film Perils of the Big City was written by Gabrielle Ringertz and photographed by Gustav A. Gustavson. Appearing in the film were Mary Johnson, who, having made several films with George af Klerker, would later film under the direction of Mauritz Stiller. Appearing in the film with Johnson were actresses Agda Helin, Tekl Sjoblom and Lilly Cronin.
Author Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema, From Ingeborg Holm to Fanny and Alexander, places Georg Af Klercker into his niche within the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film by chronicling that Charles Magnusson in 1911 contacted Klercker to head the Lidingo studios, "None of his films from the Svenska Bio days are extant, but when one inspects the few films of Klercker's that have survived- all from the Gothenburg years- one is forced to recognize that here was a major talent.
Peter Cowie, in his volume Scandinavian Cinema, elaborates,"Several of the 27 features completed by Klercker at Hasselblad were enhanced by the etheral beauty of Mary Johnson,an actress in the mould of Lillian Gish; she would reachher apogee as Elsa Lilli in 'Sir Arne's Treasure'"
The film apparently was the only film produced at Hasselblad Fotografiska, from its first film in 1915, untill it merged early in 1918 to become Filmindustri Skandia, not to have been directed by George af Klercker, Manne Gothson had previously been Klercker's assistant director. This having been said, scholar Astrid Soderberg Widding points out that Gosta Werner neglects or omits the films made by Af Klercker before he began with Hasselblad, almost to confer with other authors that place Sjostrom and Stiller at the forefront of Swedish Silent Film's Golden Age; Leif Furhammer has advanced that Af Klercker had been an Auteur only to heighten the comparison that can be made between George Af Klercker and Carl Th. Dreyer, despite Dreyer's having entered directing later and his only having scripted melodramas while searching for adaptations.
The fourty one minute film 'Mysteriet natter till den 25ie' proves to be more enigmatic than its director. it stars Swedish Silent Film actress Mary Johnson with Carl Barklind and was photographed by Sven Peutersson- one of the first films to demonstrate the need for silent film preservation, it was not shown to audiences until, 1975. Recently a genealogical study on the af Klercker family, which not only includes George af Klercker, but also Birgitta af Klercker and Fredrick af Klercker mentioned the film, but not as a film that had been lost, as many silent films have, or lost and then later found, but as a film that was originally banned by Swedish film censorship. The Swedish Film Institute confirms the film having been originally banned as a "Nick Carter" detective film, but that when the film became no longer lost, in 1975, the elements in the film that were objectionable were no longer able to be censored and the restored version was given a "for all" rating after having been missing for nearly sixty years. Describing the film as a "three act sensational drama", Peter Cowie writes, "Klercker's ingenuity yeilds constant suprises.", there being a sensibility in keeping with the director's eye evident in that "this fascination with mirrors and decor colours all Klercker's cinema".
Clearly George af Klercker was eclipsed by Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjostrom in that af Klercker left had Svenska Bio before Stiller and Sjostrom had gained renown internationally for films of longer running length. The director Geroge af Klerker is portrayed by actor Bjorn Granath in the film "The Last Scream" ("The Last Gasp", Stig Bjornman, 1995), a two character play in one act lasting almost an hour which depicts a fictional, ie. Imaginary, meeting between the director Klercker and Charles Magnussion, founder of Svensk Filmindustri and which was written by Ingmar Bergman. Actress Anna Von Rossen stars as Miss Holm. The play was published by New Press in the volume, The Fifth Act, in which also appeared Monologue, After the Rehearsal and Presence of a Clown. Stig Bjorkman, noted for his interviews of Ingmar Bergman is also the director of I Am Curious Film, and But Film is My Mistress.
It should be noted that Bjorn Granath portrays George af Klercker in the film "Jag ar nyfiken, film" (1999) in which he appears with, of course, Lena Nyman, who interviews Sven Nykvist, Eva Isaksen, Stefan Jarl and Liv Ullman, but it should also be noted that Victor Sjostrom and Ingmar Bergman are listed in the cast of players in the film "Images from the Playground" (Bilder fran Lekstugan,2009), written and directed by Stig Bjorkman, which appeared in the 2022 Cannes film festival- while many noted scholars have chosen to appraise Swedish film through the form of the essay, Stig Bjorkman has brought the interview into the onscreen literature of the documentary.
It is clear that Astrid Soderberg Widding outlines the ostensible difference between the director George af Klercker and his contemporaries Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller by accurately placing him as a director of "melodrama and sensational adventures" made in Denmark, those which had established the director Viggo Larsen ; he is also apart from the type of film made in Kristianstad before he had began with Svenska Bio at Lindingo. As academic writing among film historians can be cumulative, each seminal text nodding to what is salient in each of its predecessors, it is certain that Soderberg Widding will not only contribute to film history research, but will springboard later film theory. She describes the directing of Af Klercker with, "A purely film-theoretical aspect that becomes evident when looking at Af Klercker's production deserves to be highlighted. it has to do with the relationship between the visual and narrative elements: phenomena which in film-theoretical historiography are not infrequently regarded as counterpoints......Af Klercker's films are in their narratives quite conventional and typical of their time. They provide thrilling stories while expressing a supreme control over film as a medium." In describing this, Astrid Soderberg Widding articulates the interrelationship between content and form while praising the films of Af Klercker for their "stylistic stability and visual extravagance, if only to reiterate that characters are developed within the miss en scene context of their created environment in the narrative plots of both Danish and Swedish silent film "Here one encounters a driven visual narrator who demands a high degree of focus. many of the different narrative devices and stylistic features are noteworthy: his utilization of a qualified depth-of-focus cinematography aw well as the effect of advanced lighting." The author notes that one instance of this was Klerker's use of door frames within the image. In no academic papers already copyrighted, Soderberg Widding looks intricately at technique including the element of editing, so as not to neglect shot structure being in tandem with composition, by distinguishing a signature of Af Klercker's composition, "to use an undivided screen space where dissectons and doubling so takes place within a general frame rather than the introduction of several frames."
Swedish Silent Film director George af Klercker had been the head of the studios of Svenska Bio, Stockhom, his wife, Selma af Klercker often appearing on screen in his films. He was joined there by actorMauritz Stiler and Victor Sjostrom, who was then also leaving the theater. It has been noted that there were aprroximately 325 movie theaters open in Sweden during 1912.
Dodsritten under cirkuskupolen (1912) had been written by Charles Magnusson and photographed by Henrik Jaenzon. George Af Klercker had written his own screenplay to the 1912 film Jupiter pa Jorden, also filmed by Henrik Jaenzon. Although Af Klerker directed a short film photographed by Sven Petterson and starring actress Tyra Leijman Uppstrom during 1913, he that year also directed The Scandal (Skandalen) for Svenska Biographteatern, his photographer again Henrik Jaenzon, as was the case with the film Med Vapen I Hand that year,actress Selma Wiklund Af Klerker also returning for both films. As director, Klercker appeared on screen on camera in front of the lens of cameraman Henrik Jaenzon during "Med Vapen hand", which he did again while directing "For faderneslandent" with Jaenzon as camera man. Ragnar Ring codirected the film and wrote it's screenplay and actress Lilly Jacobsen starred in the film.
It has been noted that George af Klercker had spent time in Copenhagen and Paris after leaving Svenska Bio.
In Goteborg, Sweden, the two films produced by Hasselblads Fotofraphiska during 1915 were both filmed by George af Klerker and Sve Petterson. That year George af Klercker contributed the film "The Rose of Thistle Island" ("Rosen pa Tistelon), the first film in which actress Elsa Carlsson and Anna Lofstrom were to appear. The novel had been filmed previously by director Mauritz Stiller as "Pa livets Odesvager".
Among the films directed by George Af Klercker during 1916 was The Gift of Health (Aktie bolaget Halsams gave), the first film photographed by cinematographer Gustav Gustafson and the first film in which actress Tekla Sjoblom was to appear. Carl Gustaf Florin also is credited as having photographed with Gustafson. One of only two photoplays to be scripted by Gustaf Berg, the film is presumed to be lost with no suviving copies. Also starring in the film were Mary Johnson and Anna Lofstrom.
During 1916 cinematographer Carl Gustav Florin photographed the film "The Road Down" (Vagen Utfor) under the direction of Georg af Klercker for Hasselblad Photography. The film, starring actresses Sybil Simelova and Tekla Sjoblom, is presumed lost, with no surviving cooies existing. The running time of the film was a little over a half hour. That year Swedish film director Af Klercker also appeared on screen in the film Under the Spell of Memories (I minnenasband), in which he directed Elsa Carlsson, Tora Carlsson and Elsa Berglund. The film was written and photographed by Sven Pettersson. The 1916 film Hogsta Vinsten, in which director George Af Klercker appeared on screen with actress Gerda Thome Mattsson lasted a brief running time of only sixteen minutes at a time when the average running time had been increased from four reels to six. The film was photographed by Sven Pettersson. Also among the film's directed by George af Klercker in 1916 were "Triumph of Love" ("Karleken segrar") photographed by Carl Gustaf Florin and starring Mary Johnson, Teklas Sjoblom, Selma Wikland Klercker and Lily Cronwin in the first film in which she was to appear and the film "Mother in Law Goes for a Stroll" ("Svar pa rift") photographed by Gustav A. Gustafson and starring Greta Johansson, Maja Cassell and Zara Backman. Peter Cowie contrasts the directing of George af Klercker with that of Mauritz Stiller, "Mood and composition, however, distinguish Klercker's work more than performances." Cowie writes that the deep focus photography used in "Victory of Love" foreshadows that used by Renoir. Cowie adds, "Klercker seems equally at ease with natural or artificial light."
Af Klercker had gained renown not only for his blending artificial and natural light, but while at Hasselblad he innovated the techniques involved with a lens system that was suited for filming objects at a distance, ranging from a focal length of a few feet to that of a mile.
The Swedish Film Institute credits George af Klercker for having made two films in which actress Olga Hallgren starred whereas databases in the United States credit her with three films, all produced in Sweden during 1917 by Hasselblad studios. Klercker directed the 1917 "Ett Konstnarsode" photographed by Carl Gustaf Florin, in which Hallgren starred with actress Greta Pfeil and Klercker directed the 1917 film "Brottmalsdomanen" ("The Judge"), photographed by Carl Gustaf Florin, also starring Olga Hallgren. Sources from the United States credit Klercker with the film "Det Finns Inga Gudar pa Jordan" ("There are no Gods on Earth") from 1917 in which Olga Hallgren again starred with Greta Pfeil.
It wasn't untill 2017 that there was an unearthed copy of the 1926 film "Flickorna pa Solvik", the last film to be directed by George af Klercker, when it was rediscovered in a private collection. One of only two photoplays scripted by John Larson, the film starred actress Wanda Rothgardt, Anna Wallin and a young director Alice O Fredericks appearing in the film as an actress.
During 1918, George af Klercker directed the films "The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter" (Fryvaktarens Dottar), photographed by Gosta Staring and starring Mary Johnson and Agnes Obergsson, "Night Music" (Nattliga Toner), photographed by Gustaf A. Gustafson and starring Agda Helin, Helge Kihlberg and Tekla Sjoblom, and "Nobelpristagaren".
Klercker would appear on screen as an actor during 1925, at the helm Carl Barklind to man the ship's wheel for the film "Tre Lejon", his costars Edit Rolf and Marta Ottoson. The film was photographed by Carl Hilmers.
"Flickorna pa Solvik", which George af Klercker directed in 1926 was thought to be a lost film untill 2017, left unseen by audiences untill then with no surving copies presumed to exist. The film stars actress Wanda Rothgardt.
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Scott Lord on the Silent Film of Greta Garbo, Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjostrom as Victor Seastrom, John Brunius, Gustaf Molander - the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film........Lost Films in Found Magazines, among them Victor Seastrom directing John Gilbert and Lon Chaney, the printed word offering clues to deteriorated celluloid, extratextual discourse illustrating how novels were adapted to the screen; the photoplay as a literature;how it was reviewed, audience reception perhaps actor to actor.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
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Monday, October 20, 2025
Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: In the Fetters of Darkness (Morket I Boj...
Directed by Swedish Silent Film director George af Klercker for Hasselblads Fotografiska during 1917, "I Morkets Borje" was phtotgraphed by Swedish cinematographer Carl Gustav Florin and starred Sybil Smolawa with Helge Kihilberg. That year George af Klercker also directed the film "The Suburban Vicar".
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Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Revelj (George af Klercker, 1917)
Directed for Hasselblads Fotografiska by Swedish Silent Film director Georg af Klercker in 1917, the film "Revelj" starred actresses Mary Johnson, Lily Croswin and both Gertie Lowestrom and Gerda Bjorne in the first film in which either were to appear onscreen. The film was photographed by Carl Gustaf Florin and the screenplay was written by Carl Svensson-Graner. That year Swedish silent film director George af Klerker also directed actress Mary Johnson in the film "The Suburban Vicar" (Forstadprasten), in which she starred with Concordia Selander and Lilly Graber. During 1917 George af Klercker also directed the film "I Morkets Bojor" one of the only two films in which actress Sybil Smolova had appeared. "Vagen Utter", in which George af Klercker had a year earlier during 1916 had directed Sybil Smolova, is presumed to be lost, therebeing no surviving copies of the film. Scandinavian Silent Film Silent Film Silent Film
Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
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Greta Garbo in The Single Standard (1929, Marsh)
John Bainbridge gives an account of Greta Garbo having returned from Sweden in which the studio and public had expected her to arrive in Los Angeles and her instead having gotten off the train early to rendezvois with John Gilbert. "He had thought that things would turn out as the do in the movies, with the screen's two great lovers united in holy matrimony...According to Gilbert, Garbo had told him, 'You are a very foolish boy, Yacky. You quarrel with me for nothing. I must do my way. But we need not part.' It was on location of the film The Single Standard (eight reels) that Greta Garbo had learned of the marriage of John Gilbert to Ina Claire, "an event that came as a considerable suprise to the entire movie colony" (Bainbridge). His account includes a reporter finding Garbo on the set between two scenes and his showing her the headline, "'Thank you', she said. The reporter began pressing her with questions about her reaction to the news. 'I hope Mr. Gilbert will be very happy,' she said, and walked away." Picture Play magazine reviewed The Single Standard with, "One of the most brilliantly searching moments of acting ever seen in my fifteen years' of observation of the screen occurs in The Single Standard. It is furnished by Greta Garbo. She washes her hands, then washes her hair...Only she could make the story matter, or give it even ephemeral conviction."
It seems apparent that M.G.M. Had avoided the publicity of full page magazine advertisements for the Greta Garbo film The Single Standard and preferred using full page advertisements advertisizing the studio and its vast array of stars, mostly in a more stars in the firmament fashion, one page in 1929 reading It's Just the Beginning of MGM's Deluge of Dialouge Delights and Metro Goldwyn Mayer Your Rock of Gilbralter. It was a full page age in which the photo caption beneath Greta Garboread,"Gorgeous Greta in The Kiss with Conrad Nagel, Greater by far than The Single Standard." This may have in fact been impelled by the quickly advancing coming of sound film, if at all by the fickle contacts of Garbo or Gilbert. During 1929, Exhibito's Herlad and Motion Pictur World listed The Single Standard in a paragraph of films designated as Synchronized Pictures with Sound Effects as differentiated with those listed as Pictures With Talking sequences or Entirely of Dialouge. An advertisement during 1929 in Exhibitor's Herald merely read M.G.M The Important Company while listing the actors and actresses only by name with the working title of their current production, their frequently being instances that the titles would be changed later. With the name of the company was merely the acknowledgement of Lon Chaney in While the City Sleeps, John Gilbert in The Devil's Mask, and Greta Garbo in The Single Standard. Fim Daily of 1929 appealed to exhibitors and its moviegoing readers before providing a synopsis of the film. "Garbo splendid and spends this in for big dough. Story trite and trashy. Greta deserves better." it concluded, "It sounds like a lot of blah in print. That's exactly what it is. Garbo is too fine to waste on such stuff."
Hollywood Filmograph reviewed Greta Garbo in The Single Standard during 1929, "Adele Rogers St. John takes a sort of languid jolt at social conventions in her Single Standard, using Greta Garbo and Nils Asther to propound the doctrine. The theme appears to have been built rather than created and should hardly carry far in the external fitness of things...The Garbo fans will surely like her in this new role- a role in which she shows a little more fervor (not of the bent back kind) than usual...The Single Standard should not be a tornado at the box office." Motion Picture News added, "the story by Adela St John Rogers is highly sophisticated and in the main only suited for the big city houses; in the smaller towns it will appeal to the younger generation but the elder will undoubtedly frown on its altogether too free an exposition of sex will the heroine maintaining the right that a single standard of conduct applies to women as well as men and proceeding to put her theory into effect....Greta Garbo appears a little too old to be the typical flapper that would tackle a sex problem of this sort in the earlier positions of picture." Picture Play Magazine waited until 1930, "Brilliant acting by Greta Garbo although the story is not an inspiration. Arden Stuart attempts to live her own life freely, but conventional mother love dispels her theories."
"The girls go into long trousers. For the sea scenes of 'The Single Standard', Greta Garbo wore flannel trousers with a plain, tuck in sweater and sea going canvas shoes." Picture Play magazine in 1929 ran the caption "Only self-expression draws Greta Garbo, for she is indifferent to fame and to the luxury that comes with stardom." In regard to her being versatile, it added yet another photo caption,"Greta Garbo portrays the torments of love, and little else."
Photoplay Magazine in 1929 published an account of Nils Asther's performance in "The Single Standard". It ran, "Nils Asther measures up to the requirements of a Garbo lover. Greta gives a splendid interpretation of the woman of today at war with herself." The publication that year whispered that "Anna Chrisitie" would be Greta Garbo's first sound film, but that Garbo would still be making "The Kiss" first and that Lon Chaney was then still waiting for a dialogue director, it claiming that sound film had stopped the career of Nils Asther, it praised the voice of Ronald Colman in the film "Bulldog Drummond".
In an article for Screenland Magazine during 1931, journalist Paul Hawkins promised a more accurate portrait of Greta Garbogleaned from interviews of actors and directors rather than movie critics. It was a technique used less successfully by biographer John Bainbridge, to give Bainbridge credit, although the earlier Hawkins in one brief article uses a variety of interviews without employing anonymous sources. Screenland quoted actor Johnny Mack Brown, " 'Gee, she's a marvelous gift', sighed Johnny Mack Brown. 'I worked with Miss Garbo in "A Woman of Affairs" and "The Single Standard" and I'll never forget what a grand person she is...I worked hard, all right, but I never before or since enjoyed working hard as did in my two pictures with Greta...Miss Garbo is so conscientious that she inspires the best that is in her co-workers,,,,She was very active between shots on the set of "The Single Standard". We tossed the medicine ball around and chatted like school kids.' "
In an article for Screenland Magazine during 1931, journalist Paul Hawkins promised a more accurate portrait of Greta Garbogleaned from interviews of actors and directors rather than movie critics. It was a technique used less successfully by biographer John Bainbridge, to give Bainbridge credit, although the earlier Hawkins in one brief article uses a variety of interviews without employing anonymous sources. Screenland quoted actor Johnny Mack Brown, " 'Gee, she's a marvelous gift', sighed Johnny Mack Brown. 'I worked with Miss Garbo in "A Woman of Affairs" and "The Single Standard" and I'll never forget what a grand person she is...I worked hard, all right, but I never before or since enjoyed working hard as did in my two pictures with Greta...Miss Garbo is so conscientious that she inspires the best that is in her co-workers,,,,She was very active between shots on the set of "The Single Standard". We tossed the medicine ball around and chatted like school kids.' "
"The Single Standard" is the only screenplay written for Greta Garbo by Josephine Lovett. Starring in the film with her are Dorothy Sebastian and Kathlyn Williams.
Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
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Greta Garbo in A Woman of Affairs (Brown, 1929)
Mordant Hall writing in 1929, recounts his purported assignation with the 'Hollywood Hermit', "Soon the door of Miss Garbo's apartment was flung open and the sinuous figure of the alluring actress appeared as if from a ray of sunlight. In a low-toned voice that suited her beauty, she greeted the caller, whose eyes fell from her face to a bouquet of flowers on a table, and then to a carpet. 'Won't you sit down?', she asked." He continues to describe her pink, silk sweater and black velvet skirt, claiming that of all her films, 'A Woman of Affairs' was Greta Garbo's favorite. She evidently recounted preparing for a role on the Stockholm stage and having had studied the part, but later having decided against appearing in the theater. "She repeated, 'Delighted to have met you.'"
Biographer Rita Page Palmborg, author of The Private Life of Greta Garbo, wrote,”Garbo was anxious to make ‘A Woman’s of Affairs’. It was to be her first portrayal of a modern American girl. While the story had romance running through it, it was not filled with the passionate, exotic type of love-making that had been seen all through her other pictures. Garbo and Gilbert had several scenes heavy with romance. But the fact that their own relations were in a perpetual state of turmoil seemed to detract from the glamour of their love-making. The public seemed to sense that the Garbo-Gilbert romance was coming to an end. Hollywood could not keep track of the affair.It was a case of ‘off-again, on-again’.”
The titles of movies that Greta Garbo had signed under contract to appear in were subject to change during the end of the the silent era. On March 31, 1928, Exhibitor's Herald World ran an announcement titled, "Clarence Brown's Next To be Greta Garbo Production", which read, "Clarence Brown will again direct Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. The picture that brings the two together again is 'The Sun of St. Moritz' by Oskar Houeker."
Photoplay Magazine announced, "Rumor has it that Clarence Brown and Dorothy Sebastian are married." Of her playing against Greta Garbo in A Woman of Affairs, Sebastian was thought to "present an interpretation, brief but classic." It reviewed the performance of John Gilbert as having played, "the difficult role of lover with dramatic repression." It went on, "Miss Garbo's interpretation is all the greater because she puts it all over without a single clinging dress or a single Garbo slink." Of the intertitles, or subtitles, Photoplay Magazine was exact in its estimation of their "devastating effect" as continuity- "When Miss Cummings wants to think of something sweet for John to murmur to Greta, she orders up a flock of chocolate sodas from the studio lunchroom. Miss Cummings wrote the titles for A Woman of Affairs and there wasn't a spoonful of ice cream left in Southern California." The magazine later reviewed the film with, "Why waste space urging you to drop everything to see this one." Film Daily credits Bess Meredyth as having written the scenario and Mariona Ainslee and Ruth Cunningham as having provided the titles, "Greta Garbo does her best work of her career in a part that all women will rave over. John Gilbert has a very secondary role....Director Clarence Brown has done a masterly job. He cunningly dodged the censor stuff by treating the many-lover episodes as a series of photos taken from a newspaper's files...Synchronized sound effects." Motion Picture Classic magazine favorably reviewed the film, "The picture has been carefully plotted, so much so that it is filled with subtle asides in its scenes and titles. This procedure was necessary to pass muster. But the original meaning is incorporated in the central ideas and it is fully emphasized by Garbo's finely shaded performance. There are some gorgeous settings. The atmosphere gives it quality, too...It is Greta Garbo's work that makes it enjoyable. John Gilbert is nothing much more than a figure-head here." Motion Picture magazine reviewed the film by viewing Garbo and Gilbert, "Perhaps I'm getting old. Or perhaps it is just that Jack Gilbert finds a full dress suit happening to his style of lovemaking. At any rate, something was missing in the high-powered scenes where he and Greta Garbo show what sex can be at its best...the tempo of the picture is decidedly slow and episodic."
Author Richard Corliss looked at the directing of the film, "Faced with a plot as convoluted and predestined as a Chinese ballet, what can Clarence Brown do but direct actors like traffic. He simply discards the flamboyant eroticism of Flesh and the Devil and concentrates as much as possible on elaborately paired shots, some half a film apart, which suddenly reinforce, or undedrcut, the story's plodding ironies." He, maybe importantly to the study of the photoplay, notes that one character dies "at the exact moment" when Greta Garbo and John Gilbert are consummating their love affair, illustrating the effect of pacing the action and timing in plot exposition during the photoplay- in fiction, in classical narrative, not only can plotlines structured on character development intersect and intertangle, as counterpunctal or counterpoint, but they can occur simultaneously, editing to serve a delineating purpose of narrative structure. Screenland Magazine offered to its readers Greta Garbo's neglgee, or her "boudoir gown" rather, which would be given to the contestant who wrote the best letter on the tragic roles of the actress. The Garbo Nile robe worn in A Woman of Affairs was to be sent to the writer of the most interesting letter along with a Christmas greeting from the actress herself. Screenland asked, "How do you feel after a sad ending?" It also, two pages earlier had offered to its readers John Gilbert's Gruen Swiss wristwatch for the most intelligent letter. "Write your opinion. Does a picturesque costume add to the glamour of romantic roles or is there more interest in a modern lover? Why?" It claimed, "The watch which John Gilbert has offerred for your Christmas is an exact duplicate of the one he wore in the scenes with Greta Garbo. We asked for his watch but he said he had given it very hard wear and the winner should have a new one."
During the first run of the film appeared the article "There is a Style Trend Inspired by the Graceful Garbo. Can Every Woman Follow". The article was subtitle, "What the Garbo Girl should Wear", but the writer, Gilbert Adrian, as well as having included three costume sketches and an exclusive photograph of himself with Greta Garbo during a fashion conference, also added how the Garbo Girls present during 1928 in the circulation of Screenland Magazine should wear their hair, and should not wear their hair being a Garbo Girl type. Adrian wrote, "In following Miss Garbo, one realizes that simplicity is the key note to her smartness, as it should be of all women of taste. her natural aloofness and manner of bearing make it possible for her to put meaning into simple clothes. The girl who feels she is the Garbo type should be truthful and analyze her nature to find out whether the appearance is only skin deep, or if her mental qualities and manner can carry, with the same dignity and charm, the simplicity that Garbo knows how to handle. Garbo's flair for and understanding of drama is coupled closely with the clothes she wears...without being clothes conscious, the most conscious kind of clothes..The girl of the Garbo type should wear pajama ensembles; geometric designs in vivid colors; scarfs wrapped around the head...should NOT wear negligees of taffeta with ruffles or hand-made flowers, dainty pinks or blues, or bandea with ribbon streamers...I remember that I designed a two-piece sports costume in Boi de rose duvet even, made with a sleeveless jacket and a short skirt with roomy kick pleats for Miss Garbo to wear in A Woman of Affairs. A tucked in blouse with boyish collar and leather belt, further carried out the athletic type of costume in this instance. Topping this was a trench coat of the same material finished with a bright plaid tuxedo collar...One of Miss Garbo's favorite costumes is a two piece dress of dark green camel's hair jersey."
As soon as 1930, A Woman of Affairs was reported in hardcover as a film on which dramatic and thematic limitations were imposed. The volume Censored, The Private Life of the Movies directed it's scrutiny on the film and went so far as to imply there was a cutting of the film before release "in order to avoid showing a scene intimating that mePn and women love out of wedlock and cited other films that contained "information and dialouge infinitely more suggestive than the dropping of a ring from the hand of Greta Garbo" and yet it still went on to note that the aegis of the time period would only release the film, as with a rating, if the director was to "shorten to flash of five feet scene of Diana and Holderness on couch, embracing and kissing and eliminate view of Diana's hand except after she has dropped the ring." Close Up magazine during 1928 also referred to the film's reputation and the publicity that had preceded it, "Michael Arlen's The Greet Hat, done in celluloid, under the direction of Clarence Brown is M.G.M.'s latest vehicle for Greta Garbo. to placate the moralists who have registered objections to the screening of the story, the picture will be released under another name- A Woman of Affairs. This simple device will no doubt prove effective here as it did with the protested Rain, which under the film info into of Sadie Thompson, successfully satisfied the American puritanical conscience." Motion Picture News during 1928 addressed the quickly growing reputation of the film, as though there were something more sinister in the new sexuality of Garbo, rather than a young woman only immoral due the the inexperience of a vamp, or its new incarnation, vamping flapper, "A Woman of Affairs illustrates the fallacy of official bans on stage plays that are regarded in stage form as too daring or immoral for screen production. A Woman of Affairs proves that questionable or objectionable things in stage plays can be treated from other angles without the least offence to decency or good taste...A Woman of Affairs hasn't the slightest offensive situation."
The Film Spectator objected to the film. It’s reviewer thought to explicitly describe the mechanics of the licentious kissing of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert onscreen. “They could not call it ‘The Green Hat’ for it is supposed to be an immoral book, but they put things in the picture more filthy and disgusting than Arlen ever dreamed of.”During the first run of the film appeared the article "There is a Style Trend Inspired by the Graceful Garbo. Can Every Woman Follow". The article was subtitle, "What the Garbo Girl should Wear", but the writer, Gilbert Adrian, as well as having included three costume sketches and an exclusive photograph of himself with Greta Garbo during a fashion conference, also added how the Garbo Girls present during 1928 in the circulation of Screenland Magazine should wear their hair, and should not wear their hair being a Garbo Girl type. Adrian wrote, "In following Miss Garbo, one realizes that simplicity is the key note to her smartness, as it should be of all women of taste. her natural aloofness and manner of bearing make it possible for her to put meaning into simple clothes. The girl who feels she is the Garbo type should be truthful and analyze her nature to find out whether the appearance is only skin deep, or if her mental qualities and manner can carry, with the same dignity and charm, the simplicity that Garbo knows how to handle. Garbo's flair for and understanding of drama is coupled closely with the clothes she wears...without being clothes conscious, the most conscious kind of clothes..The girl of the Garbo type should wear pajama ensembles; geometric designs in vivid colors; scarfs wrapped around the head...should NOT wear negligees of taffeta with ruffles or hand-made flowers, dainty pinks or blues, or bandea with ribbon streamers...I remember that I designed a two-piece sports costume in Boi de rose duvet even, made with a sleeveless jacket and a short skirt with roomy kick pleats for Miss Garbo to wear in A Woman of Affairs. A tucked in blouse with boyish collar and leather belt, further carried out the athletic type of costume in this instance. Topping this was a trench coat of the same material finished with a bright plaid tuxedo collar...One of Miss Garbo's favorite costumes is a two piece dress of dark green camel's hair jersey."
As soon as 1930, A Woman of Affairs was reported in hardcover as a film on which dramatic and thematic limitations were imposed. The volume Censored, The Private Life of the Movies directed it's scrutiny on the film and went so far as to imply there was a cutting of the film before release "in order to avoid showing a scene intimating that mePn and women love out of wedlock and cited other films that contained "information and dialouge infinitely more suggestive than the dropping of a ring from the hand of Greta Garbo" and yet it still went on to note that the aegis of the time period would only release the film, as with a rating, if the director was to "shorten to flash of five feet scene of Diana and Holderness on couch, embracing and kissing and eliminate view of Diana's hand except after she has dropped the ring." Close Up magazine during 1928 also referred to the film's reputation and the publicity that had preceded it, "Michael Arlen's The Greet Hat, done in celluloid, under the direction of Clarence Brown is M.G.M.'s latest vehicle for Greta Garbo. to placate the moralists who have registered objections to the screening of the story, the picture will be released under another name- A Woman of Affairs. This simple device will no doubt prove effective here as it did with the protested Rain, which under the film info into of Sadie Thompson, successfully satisfied the American puritanical conscience." Motion Picture News during 1928 addressed the quickly growing reputation of the film, as though there were something more sinister in the new sexuality of Garbo, rather than a young woman only immoral due the the inexperience of a vamp, or its new incarnation, vamping flapper, "A Woman of Affairs illustrates the fallacy of official bans on stage plays that are regarded in stage form as too daring or immoral for screen production. A Woman of Affairs proves that questionable or objectionable things in stage plays can be treated from other angles without the least offence to decency or good taste...A Woman of Affairs hasn't the slightest offensive situation."
Recently, Scholar Carmen Guiralt, writing in Film History, an International Journal, has added what may be an important source to the distinctions of diegetic and non-diegetic discourse and of textural and extra-textural discourse involved in the thematic and metaphorical rendering of content within context and its exhibition in the public sphere, almost to where we might revisit the theory of a cinema of attractions and reconsider it within a pre-code public sphere. The author looks at the censored image with discourse- particularly when those images are used to transpose the discourse of the novel during its adaptation. Greta GarboThe central premise of the paper Self-Censorship in Hollywood during the Silent Era : A Woman of Affairs (1928), is almost too direct to not be stunning. An abstract reads," This article studies, from a historical view as well as an aesthetic point of view, the constraints placed... On the production and on Clarence Brown's use of visual images to convey the full content of the novel. As a result, A Woman of Affairs presents two contradictory story lines, the narrative revealed by the images and the difficult speech supervised by the censors and featured in the intertitles of the film." The film had been vastly altered by the censors in regard to its screenplay and a corresponding new plot had to be devised.
Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
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Scott Lord Silent Film: Greta Garbo in Love (Edmund Goulding,1927)
The film was photographed by William Daniels.
John Gilbert during 1927 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
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Scott Lord Silent Film: Greta Garbo in The Temptress (Fred Niblo)
The periodical Motion Picture News during 1926 the filming of "Temptress" with a review entitled "Greta Garbo in the Title Role of 'The Temptress'. It read,"Greta Garbo, Swedish actress, will have the title role in Cosmopolitan's production of 'The Temptress, which will be a Metro Goldwyn Mayer release directed by Mauritz Stiller. She is now working in 'Ibanez' The Torrent'." Greta Garbo had in fact signed to do the film on the condition that Stiller was to direct.
The periodical Motion Picture News during 1925 announced that Mauritz Stiller had been slated to direct "The Temptress" by imparting that he had been brought to the United States by Louis B. Mayer. "Stiller won wide reputation in Europe for his productions."
Author Forsyth Hardy, in his volume Scandinavian Film, curtly, only briefly mentions that Mauritz Stiller was removed as director of the film after a disagreement with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Biographer William Stewart, in The True Life Story of Greta Garbo gives an account purporting that Mauritz Stiller "had not yet mastered the American method of making pictures. Handling crowds gave him trouble and his lack of English made every move difficult." Hollywood writer Bosley Crowther, in his biography of Louis B. Mayer entitled The Hollywood Rajah writes that Mauritz Stiller "proved to be too finicky and slow" and "difficult", a type of director that "were now being got out of the studio", but adds that before the filming of "The Temptress" was completed, Greta Garbo had met and fallen in love with Jack Gilbert. Although Garbo and Gilbert met during 1926, it seems that Crowther is approximating and according to Clarence Brown, her director, Garbo and Gilbert met on the set of the third film Greta Garbo had made in the United States.
Ruth Biery, who writes "I have seldom met anyone more timid than Garbo' became known to readers of fan magazines as the first biographer to introduce Greta Garbo with an interview from New Year's Eve 1927 that resulted in her appearing in three issues during 1928, Garbo the May Photoplay cover. Ruth Biery returned to the subject of Stiller and Garbo four years later. "They cast her in 'The Temptress' because Mauritz Stiller insisted upon it. He was to direct it. He directed the production in a way that would work to the advantage of his protoge. Garbo was tall. Antonio Moreno, the actor, was not so tall. The directed insisted that he wear his hair pompador fashion to make him look taller. He put him into boots- undoubtedly to make Garbo's feet look smaller. Moreno resented his favoritism. There was a battle and Stiller lost. He was removed from the picture. This was Garbo' first experience with studio politics. Because of her, Stiller lost his job. Yet it was her friend Stiller who insisted on her being in the picture. She was bewildered, crushed." Biery continued, "She may have loved Stiller. I do not know. I do know she enshrined him. When she talked to me of Stiller her eyes filled with tears, her entire body trembled with emotion."
The first instance of Greta Garbo granting an interview to journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, author of The Private Life of Greta Garbo, was on the set of "The Temptress". " 'I was frantic when Mr. Stiller was taken from the picture,' she said. 'It is difficult for me to understand direction through an interpreter. Everything over here is strange and different. And this studio is so large it confuses me.' "
The True Life Story of Greta Garbo by William Stewart continues, "The second disaster to occur during the filming of 'The Temptress' was the death of Greta's sister."
In The Private Life of Greta Garbo, journalist Rilla Page Palmborg wrote, "Garbo made even a greater sensation in The Temptress than in The Torrent....But Greta declared she knew nothing of the technique of acting. That for the time being she 'was' the person in the picture. She did not know how she got certain effects. She did not know why she did things the way she did them."
Silent Film
Greta Garbo Victor Seastrom
The periodical Motion Picture News during 1925 announced that Mauritz Stiller had been slated to direct "The Temptress" by imparting that he had been brought to the United States by Louis B. Mayer. "Stiller won wide reputation in Europe for his productions."
Author Forsyth Hardy, in his volume Scandinavian Film, curtly, only briefly mentions that Mauritz Stiller was removed as director of the film after a disagreement with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Biographer William Stewart, in The True Life Story of Greta Garbo gives an account purporting that Mauritz Stiller "had not yet mastered the American method of making pictures. Handling crowds gave him trouble and his lack of English made every move difficult." Hollywood writer Bosley Crowther, in his biography of Louis B. Mayer entitled The Hollywood Rajah writes that Mauritz Stiller "proved to be too finicky and slow" and "difficult", a type of director that "were now being got out of the studio", but adds that before the filming of "The Temptress" was completed, Greta Garbo had met and fallen in love with Jack Gilbert. Although Garbo and Gilbert met during 1926, it seems that Crowther is approximating and according to Clarence Brown, her director, Garbo and Gilbert met on the set of the third film Greta Garbo had made in the United States.
Ruth Biery, who writes "I have seldom met anyone more timid than Garbo' became known to readers of fan magazines as the first biographer to introduce Greta Garbo with an interview from New Year's Eve 1927 that resulted in her appearing in three issues during 1928, Garbo the May Photoplay cover. Ruth Biery returned to the subject of Stiller and Garbo four years later. "They cast her in 'The Temptress' because Mauritz Stiller insisted upon it. He was to direct it. He directed the production in a way that would work to the advantage of his protoge. Garbo was tall. Antonio Moreno, the actor, was not so tall. The directed insisted that he wear his hair pompador fashion to make him look taller. He put him into boots- undoubtedly to make Garbo's feet look smaller. Moreno resented his favoritism. There was a battle and Stiller lost. He was removed from the picture. This was Garbo' first experience with studio politics. Because of her, Stiller lost his job. Yet it was her friend Stiller who insisted on her being in the picture. She was bewildered, crushed." Biery continued, "She may have loved Stiller. I do not know. I do know she enshrined him. When she talked to me of Stiller her eyes filled with tears, her entire body trembled with emotion."
The first instance of Greta Garbo granting an interview to journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, author of The Private Life of Greta Garbo, was on the set of "The Temptress". " 'I was frantic when Mr. Stiller was taken from the picture,' she said. 'It is difficult for me to understand direction through an interpreter. Everything over here is strange and different. And this studio is so large it confuses me.' "
The True Life Story of Greta Garbo by William Stewart continues, "The second disaster to occur during the filming of 'The Temptress' was the death of Greta's sister."
In The Private Life of Greta Garbo, journalist Rilla Page Palmborg wrote, "Garbo made even a greater sensation in The Temptress than in The Torrent....But Greta declared she knew nothing of the technique of acting. That for the time being she 'was' the person in the picture. She did not know how she got certain effects. She did not know why she did things the way she did them."
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Greta Garbo in The Torrent (Monta Bell, 1926)
During the summer of 1925, Metro Goldwyn advertised Swedish Silent Film director Victor Seastrom's "Tower of Lies" with Norma Shearer and Lon Chaney as "Selma Lagerlof's world prize novel with the outstanding personalities of 'He Who Gets Slapped'". Using the front and inside covers of Moving Picture World Magazine, it also advertised "Bardleys the Magnificient", starring John Gilbert as a "colossal production in full technicolor", "Lights of Old Broadway", starring Marion Davies and directed by Monta Bell, and advertised two Cosmolitan Productions, The Temptress, "backed by intensive national publicity promotions of Cosmopolitan Productions, and "The Torrent"- "with Aileen Pringle in a cast of big names". To readers beginning with the recent biography by Robert Dance, Pringle was "displaced" by Greta Garbo
Author Lucy Fischer, in the paper Greta Garbo and Silent Cinema:The Actress as Art Deco Icon In no way establishes an Art Deco style of filmmaking as opposed to an art nouveau style of painting, although the elements of a modernity, including thematic elements, are certainly present. Fischer sees the film “The Torrent”, essentially a jazz age film and a precursor to the upcoming surprise of precode, as fluctuating between stylistic flourishes. These for Fischer are not inserted inadvertently, but at “heightened moments of the text” and the first “glamour shot” of Greta Garbo “inhabits a modernist space”. It is almost as if the author is implying that the screenwriter worked more closely with the wardrobe department than the scenario department while making her point. It would seem that Fischer is analyzing the shot structure of the film and its camera movement, the photoplay, by changes in what Greta Garbo is wearing rather than by evaluating how the spectator is drawn to the screen by a medium that after art nouveau, Dadaism and ante-bellum needed Art Deco to commercialize in a world apart from Sarah Bernhardt and the poster iconography of Alphonse Mucha. But Fischer brings a point of departure as the subculture of early surrealism lacked popularity in Hollywood- is Art Deco more than set and costume design and is there a corresponding style of acting, if not directing for the “lost generation”?
For a moment, let’s allow our look at Greta Garboin the film be a collection of shots of the new fashions within modernity and transfer theory written about one genre, the Silent Western to another- with the hope of providing a key to her volume on the iconography of Silent Western Film, the content of its mise en scene and typical motifs, author Nanna Verhoeff, in her volume “The West in Early Cinema, before quoting Jacques Derrida,claims to have coined the phrase “archival poetics” as compared and contrasted to other semiotics systems, to narrative poetics or to poetics of gender, much as a “landscape poetics” emerged in the reviews of the silent films of Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjostrom The author highlights the content of Western Silent films by searchingly for their common physical elements, which presumably at times include Sjostrom’s masterpieces “The Wind” and at times, owing to its historical context, would not. The author writes, “I am to reflect on the connections between objects, discursive systems within which they can be understood and the cultural life in the present within which such ‘readability’ in terms of poetics’ etymological sense of making. The current interest in hypertextual discursive organization will serve as a heuretical metaphor that will help articulate an archival poetics useful for cultural analysis of early screen culture, in other words screening the past.” Needless to say this alone doesn’t place Greta Garboas an Art Deco figurehead and the volume written by Verhoeff consists of analysis of early silent film independent of the work of Greta Garbo but it places an archival value on the screen prescence of Greta Garbo contingent on the technology of the period and on audience reception that dates genres as having a chronological beginning when they are to emerge- Garbo’s insistence she did not belong to the Vamp iconography. If a dress worn by Garbo, then an article in a time capsule. To see the effect of costume design clearly, one might look at Elizabeth Taylor in the film Cleopatra, where it seems that every cut to a new scene includes Taylor wearing a different gown, adding a aesthetic value to the silence within each scene through numerous visual additions to mine en scene through numerous costume changes.
Greta Garbo arrives from Europe
When refilmed, her hollywood screentest would by filmed by Mauritz Stiller and purportedly spliced into the rushes of Torrent and was then, in turn, seen by Monta Bell, who insisted the script be given to Garbo. Greta Garbo's second screentest had been photographed by Henrik Sartov, who later explained that the earlier test had lacked proper lighting and that a lens he had devised had allowed him to articulate depth while filming her. Cameraman William Daniels had photographed the earlier test. Lillian Gish relates a conversation between her and Sartov where Gish asked him if he could photograph a screentest of Garbo, "Garbo's temperment reflected the rain and gloom of the long, dark Scandinavian winters."It skips any personal contact made between its author, Hedda Hopper, and actress Greta Garbo up untill a phone call from Ina Claire during her marriage to John Gilbert when Hopper had been visiting the set of His Glorious Night and, even then, when giving an account of Greta Garbo walking off the set when Arthur Brisbane had stepped on to it, it makes no claim that Hopper had ever spoken to the actress while at contract at M.G.M., but as an autobiography, From Under My Hat, the personal memoir of the events of Hedda Hopper's career in Hollywood, leaves us with a question. Why was Hedda Hopper compelled to include biography about Greta Garbo ? The account Hopper gives is standard and third person, much like the biography provided by John Bainbridge, it seeming to have its origin in the same fan magazines that were prevalent at the time and following their consensus. "In 1926 Lillian Gish," Hopper writes, "brought a Russian cameraman, whose name I've forgotten, to Hollywood from the East. Nobody had seen the work of the Russian. The studio saw some trick slides with which he was said to get effects...He was asked to make tests...So for three days Greta Garbo sat on a high stool while the unknown Russian made tests of her. A director was looking at water scenes to use in his picture 'The Torrent', when accidentally, the test using Garbo were cut in. His producer was sitting beside him. Apologizing nervously, he stopped the projection. 'No, go ahead,' said the director, 'I want to see something.' When they'd been run through once, he called for them to be run again, then jumped up and ran to the front office. 'I want that girl- the one in the tests. I want her for 'The Torrent.'" Hedda Hopper continues her autobiography with scenes from the romance between Garbo and Gilbert which she was also no part of and without personal memory, which is again odd in that the stories belong more properly to fan magazines, for example Photoplay Magazine, which offered a flurry of biography on Stiller and Gilbert between 1932 and 1935, for some reason the fact that Garbo wouldn't grant interviews making her the subject of biographies speculating why she had become a recluse. Hopper in fact calmy writes, "Garbo had no confidantes" at a point when the reader has begun to question when the two women had ever interacted. Under My Hat was published by Hopper during 1952, twenty years after the height of publicity of how the Swedish Sphinx had come to the United States to fall out of love with John Gilbert
At first Garbo was reluctant to accept a role in the film "The Torrent". Although it was a large role that had been considered for Norma Shearer, whom Bell had directed in the film After Midnight (1921). Mauritz Stiller advised, "It can lead to better parts later." to which Garbo replied, "How can I take direction from someone I don't know?". John Bainbridge writes that in the beginning Garbo spent most of her time with , quoting him as having said, "You will see that something will become of her." It would be ten weeks before the studio would show any marked interest in her, this mostly at the behest of Stiller and in light of his second series of screentests. "She was especially fond of Seastrom's children," Bainbridge writes, "and brought little present to them." Victor Sjostrom's daughter is the Swedish actress Guje Lagerwall
Begnt Forlund notes that the filming of Anna Karenina had at first been thought for actress Lillian Gish, who in Sweden, Greta Garbo had seen the film White Sister. In her autobiography, Gish wrote, "I often saw young Garbo on the set. She was then the protege of the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller. Stiller often left her on my set. He would take her to lunch and then bring her back, and Garbo would sit there watching." John Bainbridge reiterates this while writing on The Torrent, "Stiller did not appear on the set, but every evening he rehearsed Garbo in the next day's scenes, coaching her in every movement and every expression...Stiller delivered Garbo to the studio every morning and called for her every night." He quotes a letter written to Sweden by Stiller, "Greta is starting work for a well-known director and I think she has got an excellant part." Richard Corliss adds, "Though out of her element and seperated from Mauritz Stiller, Garbo gives fine performance, full of feeling and technical precocity. her first Hollywood kiss is one to remember."
Biographer Norman Zierold almost amazingly gives an account of the early rushes to the film "The Torrent" without divulging how he had came about knowledge of a screening of them, "In repose, sitting with her shoulders stooped, her eyes half closed, Greta seemed devoid of allure. Then would come the call before the cameras. She would rise with a movement of astonishing grace and suddenly her face would come to life. its heavenly beauty apparent to all. HErs was a lobe affair with the camera." Norman Zierold, in his 1969 biography Garbo, write, "The Swedish colony, especially Stiller, thought the final version of 'The Torrent' terrible." Zierold quotes Greta Garbo as having said, "Wouldn't it be cheaper to make a good movie".
Swedish actor Lars Hanson attended the premiere of the film and reflected, "We all thought the picture was a flop and that Garbo was terrible...In our opinion it didn't mean anything." Bainbridge makes the observation that Mauritz Stiller and Victor Seastrom were also at the premiere. He writes, "The picture did perhaps contain a few imperfections, such as Garbo's costumes." As a biographer, Bainbridge is enjoyable to read in one sense, not only for his prose synopsis of the film, but that he plays a guessing game by quoting a Swedish actress who was then in Hollywood without disclosing her name, the reader to wonder if she was in fact Karen Molander, wife of Lars Hanson who journeyed to Hollywood with him. The accuracy of Hollywood reporting during the Twenties, or Jazz Age, on which Bainbridge seems to base his historical references was admittedly referred to by Picture Play magazine and journalist William H. McKegg in Three Sphinxes, which compared Jetta Goudal, Ronald Colman and Greta Garbo, who, as of 1929, were three people that "puzzle Hollywood" It opined, "Of course rumors have been spread bu those who "know". Some say that Garbo was a waitress in one of the open air cafés in the Swedish capital. They add that the poverty and sorrow she underwent made her fearful of life. Only those who have experienced poverty really know hoe cruel human beings can be to one another. some say she was a singer. Who cares?"The subtitle to one section of The Story of Greta Garbo as told to Ruth Biery, published in Photoplay during 1929 reads, "Tempermental of misunderstood". In it Greta Garbo relates the events that led up to her having left the studio for what would only be less than a week, "Then it was for months here before I was to work for Mr. Stiller. I'm r. When it couldn't be arranged, they put me in The Torrent, with Mr. Monta Bell directing. It was very hard work, but I didn't mind that. I was at the studio every morning at seven o'clock and untill six every evening." She goes further explaining that there was a language barrier that would later contribute to Mauritz Stiller being also taken off her next picture, "Mr. Stiller is an artist...he does not understand the American factories. He always made his own pictures in Europe, where he is the master. In our country it is always the small studio." Stiller had in fact written to Sweden to say, "There is nothing here of Europe's culture." Journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, author of The Private Life of Greta Garbo, during 1931 wrote of a language barrier that extended to both Greta Garbo and Mauritz Stiller, her giving an account of the actress not having learned enough English to be fluent while making "The Torrent" and while there was no dialouge in the film, the instructions from director Monta Bell were given to her through her interpreter, Sven Borg. Palmborg attributes Mauritz Stiller and his determination as an artist with encouragement that was crucial to Greta Garbo's succeeding in Hollywood. It is of note that in regard to Stiller's relationship to the studio, and Thalberg, Lars Hanson has been quoted as having said, "And Stiller, because he could speak hardly any English, wasn't able to explain what he was doing and how to satisfy them.": it was on the set of The Torrent that author Sven-Hugo Borg was introduced to Stiller, who in turn then informed Garbo that he was assigned translator under Monta Bell's direction. In "The Private Life of Greta Garbo By Her Most Intimate Friend" ("The Only True Story of the Private Life of Greta Garbo" Borg recounts that Bell had turned to him and had said of her, "What a voice! If we could only use it." Of the film he notes, "Of course she was constantly with Stiller, spending every possible moment with him; but thought that when the camera's eye was flashed upon her, (that)the picture would decide her fate began, (that) he would not be there terrified her." Borg continued as the interpreter for Greta Garbo untill 1929. The titles of the biographies of Greta Garbo by Rilla Palmborg and Sven Borg, written only two years apart in 1931 and 1933 ostensibly do sound similar. Sven Borg was primarily an actor, with many uncredited Hollywood endeavors.
Begnt Forlund notes that the filming of Anna Karenina had at first been thought for actress Lillian Gish, who in Sweden, Greta Garbo had seen the film White Sister. In her autobiography, Gish wrote, "I often saw young Garbo on the set. She was then the protege of the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller. Stiller often left her on my set. He would take her to lunch and then bring her back, and Garbo would sit there watching." John Bainbridge reiterates this while writing on The Torrent, "Stiller did not appear on the set, but every evening he rehearsed Garbo in the next day's scenes, coaching her in every movement and every expression...Stiller delivered Garbo to the studio every morning and called for her every night." He quotes a letter written to Sweden by Stiller, "Greta is starting work for a well-known director and I think she has got an excellant part." Richard Corliss adds, "Though out of her element and seperated from Mauritz Stiller, Garbo gives fine performance, full of feeling and technical precocity. her first Hollywood kiss is one to remember."
Biographer Norman Zierold almost amazingly gives an account of the early rushes to the film "The Torrent" without divulging how he had came about knowledge of a screening of them, "In repose, sitting with her shoulders stooped, her eyes half closed, Greta seemed devoid of allure. Then would come the call before the cameras. She would rise with a movement of astonishing grace and suddenly her face would come to life. its heavenly beauty apparent to all. HErs was a lobe affair with the camera." Norman Zierold, in his 1969 biography Garbo, write, "The Swedish colony, especially Stiller, thought the final version of 'The Torrent' terrible." Zierold quotes Greta Garbo as having said, "Wouldn't it be cheaper to make a good movie".
Swedish actor Lars Hanson attended the premiere of the film and reflected, "We all thought the picture was a flop and that Garbo was terrible...In our opinion it didn't mean anything." Bainbridge makes the observation that Mauritz Stiller and Victor Seastrom were also at the premiere. He writes, "The picture did perhaps contain a few imperfections, such as Garbo's costumes." As a biographer, Bainbridge is enjoyable to read in one sense, not only for his prose synopsis of the film, but that he plays a guessing game by quoting a Swedish actress who was then in Hollywood without disclosing her name, the reader to wonder if she was in fact Karen Molander, wife of Lars Hanson who journeyed to Hollywood with him. The accuracy of Hollywood reporting during the Twenties, or Jazz Age, on which Bainbridge seems to base his historical references was admittedly referred to by Picture Play magazine and journalist William H. McKegg in Three Sphinxes, which compared Jetta Goudal, Ronald Colman and Greta Garbo, who, as of 1929, were three people that "puzzle Hollywood" It opined, "Of course rumors have been spread bu those who "know". Some say that Garbo was a waitress in one of the open air cafés in the Swedish capital. They add that the poverty and sorrow she underwent made her fearful of life. Only those who have experienced poverty really know hoe cruel human beings can be to one another. some say she was a singer. Who cares?"The subtitle to one section of The Story of Greta Garbo as told to Ruth Biery, published in Photoplay during 1929 reads, "Tempermental of misunderstood". In it Greta Garbo relates the events that led up to her having left the studio for what would only be less than a week, "Then it was for months here before I was to work for Mr. Stiller. I'm r. When it couldn't be arranged, they put me in The Torrent, with Mr. Monta Bell directing. It was very hard work, but I didn't mind that. I was at the studio every morning at seven o'clock and untill six every evening." She goes further explaining that there was a language barrier that would later contribute to Mauritz Stiller being also taken off her next picture, "Mr. Stiller is an artist...he does not understand the American factories. He always made his own pictures in Europe, where he is the master. In our country it is always the small studio." Stiller had in fact written to Sweden to say, "There is nothing here of Europe's culture." Journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, author of The Private Life of Greta Garbo, during 1931 wrote of a language barrier that extended to both Greta Garbo and Mauritz Stiller, her giving an account of the actress not having learned enough English to be fluent while making "The Torrent" and while there was no dialouge in the film, the instructions from director Monta Bell were given to her through her interpreter, Sven Borg. Palmborg attributes Mauritz Stiller and his determination as an artist with encouragement that was crucial to Greta Garbo's succeeding in Hollywood. It is of note that in regard to Stiller's relationship to the studio, and Thalberg, Lars Hanson has been quoted as having said, "And Stiller, because he could speak hardly any English, wasn't able to explain what he was doing and how to satisfy them.": it was on the set of The Torrent that author Sven-Hugo Borg was introduced to Stiller, who in turn then informed Garbo that he was assigned translator under Monta Bell's direction. In "The Private Life of Greta Garbo By Her Most Intimate Friend" ("The Only True Story of the Private Life of Greta Garbo" Borg recounts that Bell had turned to him and had said of her, "What a voice! If we could only use it." Of the film he notes, "Of course she was constantly with Stiller, spending every possible moment with him; but thought that when the camera's eye was flashed upon her, (that)the picture would decide her fate began, (that) he would not be there terrified her." Borg continued as the interpreter for Greta Garbo untill 1929. The titles of the biographies of Greta Garbo by Rilla Palmborg and Sven Borg, written only two years apart in 1931 and 1933 ostensibly do sound similar. Sven Borg was primarily an actor, with many uncredited Hollywood endeavors.
Author Richard Corliss remarked upon the performance in the film by Greta Garbo "Though out of her element and separated from Mauritz Stiller, Garbo gives a fine performance. Her first Hollywood kiss is one to remember...There are to be sure moments early in the film when Garbo works too hard with her eyes; overstating emotions rather than expressing them, dropping nuances like anvils, registering filial devotion...but she grows in the role...by the final scenes..she is utterly convincing as an actress and a star." Corliss continues stating that there are flashes of the later Garbo as though she were many-talented and in retrospect it was present but would later develop more fully, "By the end of The Torrent he face seems more severely contoured, her eyes more glacially clear, her head lifted upward by the chinstrap of spiritual pride. The phenomena is that of a star creating her own myth within the time-space of a single film." Photoplay magazine quoted Greta Garbo, "Greta Garbo was having her pictures taken by Ruth Harriet Louise. During one of the close up shots her eyes blinked, 'Oh, I'm so sorry, Miss Louise,' Greta apologized, 'But I twinkled.'" The production stills of Greta Garbo during the filming of The Torrent were photographed by Ruth Harriet Louise. Ruth Harriet Louise had also published an early full photograph of Greta Garbo in Motion Picture Classic Magazine during May of 1926. Before photographing Greta Garbo Louise had created her "first published Hollywood image", that of Vilma Banky from the film Dark Angel in the September 1925 issue of Photoplay and during 1926 she contributed a particularly romantic blue-titnted portrait of Pauline Stark and Antonio Moreno to Photoplay from the film Love's Blindness. During 1928 Louise contributed to Screenland Magazine a portrait of Lars Hansen and Lillian Gish, "the lovers in the forthcoming special production The Wind", directed by Victor Sjostrom under the name Victor Seastrom. For those susceptible to the fantasy of Hollywood, it might feel like one of those rare fleeting siI'm at ghtings of Harriet Brown but it in fact that Robert Dance and Bruce Robertson introduce the photographer in their volume Ruth Harriet Louise and Hollywood Glamour Photography. The authors include a photograph of Greta Garbo taken by Ruth Harriet Louise, who had invited her back to her studios for another photo shoot after the filming of The Torrent had come to its completion, late December of 1925. Harriet Brown, now in fact Harriet Brown and company, the owner of the photograph is none other than "senior management and market executive" Scott Reisfield whom, and I quote, "Developed museum exhibit of photographs with the Santa Barbra Museum of Art. The exhibit subsequently was toured to four additional venues. Developed a book published by Rizzoli in conjunction with the museum exhibit." in all honesty, I have not as of yet corresponded with Mr. Reisfield about Greta Garbo, Sven Gustaffson or Guge Lagerwall.
The picture of Greta Garbo in a chair seated next to a lion, Garbo photographed outdoors on what at first appears to be a bench and the lion posing with his feet elevated on a log, as it was first published in Motion Picture Magazine during 1926 must have been a publicity test, by a publicity department that may have named her The Swedish Sphinx during the silent era, as it left her not only silent but unidentified, without printing her name; the caption reads, "$10.00 for the best title of this picture."
It it clearly for emotion that Garbo posed for the soft-focus series of portraits, almost in as much as the close up in film is used to depict the significant detail of the shot. During December 1925, a photograph of greta Garbo by Arnold Genthe was published in Picture Play magazine with the caption From the Land of the Vikings, it announcing that she was the "latest arrival" from Scandinavia, a "statuesque blond, very reserved in manner." Picture Play Magazine during 1927 used a full page photograph taken by Arnold Genthe to figurehead the article Rebellion Sweeps Hollywood, written by Aieleen St. John Brennon, following it within pages by a portrait of Lars Hanson by Ruth Harriet Louise, it's caption noting that he had "amassed a large following since his forceful performance in The Scarlett Letter and now has the title role in Captain Salvation.
There are twenty three photographs of Greta Garbo taken by the photographer Arnold Genthe in the United States either on July 25, or July 27. Often unseen by the public and for the most part belonging to public domain, the were part of his estate and are presently housed at the library of congress. 

Biographer Norman Zeirold, who used a photograph of Greta Garbo taken by Genthe for the cover of his wonderful volume has written that, "Garbo's plasticity made it possible for her to reflect the fantasies of her screen audiences, in the sense she functioned as a receptacle for the emotions of others." An attempt on the present author to include the subject of Greta Garbo while corresponding with Norman Zierold, now a professor, was mostly unsuccessful. In keeping with the Greata Garbo that was nearly unknown to movies audiences for her personal life off-screen despite its being highly remarked upon by extra-diegetic text, the Garbo that had lurked in the shadows of museum-art-house screenings as a recluse after her retirement, the Garbo that had blindfolded her firing squad as she smoked a cigarrette as though at any time she could be sitting right beside any us us during any of her films while as spectators we made identifications with each interpellated nuance, I added, "These emotional structures are created within each particular film, often by subject and spectator positioning that exploits the combination of tragic seductress, the viewer, and the film's other characters often in relation to her pre-talkie, before sound, body in an objectification of sexual mystery, as when her body within the frame creates space between two other characters in front of the camera, isolating them near a specific visual motif, or when Greta Garbo briefly moves into the emotion of a particular solitude." But then clearly, the relationship between character and landscape and its interaction with subject positioning and or spectatorial positioning can also differ widely from one director to another, almost to the point where it includes stylization, as when comparing the film's of Victor Sjostrom and Carl Th. Dreyer- the relation of character to landscape during the appearances of Greta Garbo is a relation, or inverse relation, to modernity within the object arrangements of mise-en-scene and female sexuality. Louise Lagterstrom of the Swedish Film Institute adorned her writing on the arrival of Greta Garbo in Hollywood, "Mot Hollywood", with a photograph taken in 1924 by Arnold Grenthe, almost reiterating Garbo was photographed extensively, often posing as a photo-model for publicity stills before her deciding to live in self-imposed exile.

Picture Play magazine, in a section titled A Confidential Guide to Current Releases, reviewed Ibanez's "Torrent" with "Interesting film introducing the magnetic Swedish actress Greta Garbo to American audiences. Richard Cortez plays the young lover whose mother's influence kills his romance and ruins two lives."
The entire review of The Torrent in Photoplay runs as follows: "Monta Bell stands well in the foreground of those directors who can take a simple story and fill it with true touches that the characters emerge real human beings and the resulting film becomes a small masterpiece. Such work has he created in The Torrent and for fans who are slightly grown up, this picture will be a visual delight. Greta Garbo, the new Swedish importation is very lovely." To provide a timeline, it appears on the same page as a review of The Devil's Circus (Benjamin Christensen). Tucked away in a later Photoplay issue was a more candid reviewer, "Greta Garbo exerts an evil fascination- on the screen. True, her debut was not auspiciously placed in The Torrent, which is in reality a babbling brook that runs on forever, now-she-loves-him-now-she don't until the end of the film and beyond." The reviewer then complements her as being attractive, surveying her eyes, lips and nostrils in, perhaps, a "gender-specific" paragraph. And yet Eugene V. Brewster began the watching of Greta Garbo on the part of Motion Picture Classic magazine with his own secular view, "At Metro Goldwyn Studios they showed me a few reels of Greta Garbo's unfinished picture. This striking young Swedish actress will doubtless appeal to many but somehow I couldn't see the great coming star in her the company expects." Frederick James Smith continued for Motion Picture Classic with Greta Garbo Arrives, "The newcomer is a slumber-eyed Norsewoman, one Greta Garbo, who seems to have more possiblities than anyone since Pola Negri of Passion...She isn't afraid to act. That she was able to stand out of an infererior story, poorly directed, is more than her credit...The Ibanez story is full of claptrap, including the dam that bursts without having anything to do with the story. Monta Bell tossed it in the film form without any apparent interest." It quickly followed with the article, "The Northern Star, The Screen's Newest Meteor is a Moody daughter of Sweden", written by Alice L. Tildelsey, who decidedly felt more at liberty to Greta Garbo than interviewers that came later. She relates that the actress had said, "I love the sea, yes. It understands me, I think...it is not happy, it is always yearning for something that it cannot have." Garbo purportedly referred to herself as "poor little Sweden girl" during the interview. "Now for my new picture I must learn to dance the tango and to ride the horse." Tidesley refers to Garbo as "a moody young thing, Greta Garbo, with the temperment of the true artist." The article imparts how Greta Garbo was introduced to Mauritz Stiller, who had seen her performing Ibsen and had had her called in to his office. The photograph of Garbo was taken by Ruth Harriet Louise.
National Board of Review magazine, although literate, may have remained true to form as it typified the film with, "The story preserves a European atmosphere in which parents still have the least say about their children's marriages." Biographer Richard Corliss fairly accurately assesses Greta Garbo's first of several silent films, "Not only does it prefigure many of the morals and motifs of her later pictures, but it avoids many of those films pirouettes into the ludicrous. All things considered (the times. the material, the studio, The Torrent is a suprisingly adult piece of work." While reading Corliss the reviewer as essayist, there is a slight temptation to see him presenting the synopsis of each story and the characters as being antiquated, that it is a reevaluation of our film and its incidents but, written while it was a given that Garbo was leading a solitary life, it is kept within Garbo being a mystery, that if the stories were outdated, they could be looked at with curiousity and inquiry, as the fantasies they were meant to be, and in that way the reviews of Richard Corliss only contain a hint of being outdated in their being questioning without necessity. To compare and contrast, if Corliss is writing about the versatility of Greta Garbo, John Bainbridge reverberates the sentiment, "What was to become known as the Garbo manner was but faintly discernable in The Torrent, but there were intimations." Bainbridge seems to keep his secret that much of the material for his biography was derived from fan magazines, albeit he conducted interviews. Biographies on Greta Garbo the sensation began to appear, almost in droves, as soon as the actress had spoken in sound film, many explaining how she reached the screen in Hollywood in the first place while adding spoonfuls of data about Mauritz Stiller. This was to nearly culminate in 1938 with Modern Screen's 15 pages of biography, The True Life Story of Greta Garbo, written by William Stewart. It summarized, "The picture was The Torrent, originally slated for Aileen Pringle but given to Garbo as a test of her ablility...It pleased her, but for final praise she awaited Stiller's word. "It is good.', he said, and those three encouraging words were sufficient." In that being bilingual played a part on Stiller's dismissal from M.G.M, there is an interesting quote from John Bainbridge's biography, "Her inability to speak English prevented her, even if she had wished, from mixing easily with the other people on the set. In spare moments at the studio she was being tutored in English by an interpreter who had been assigned to translate her. She also practiced English with her chief cameraman, William Daniels, with whom she struck up a pleasant and lasting acquaintance, 'I didn't teach Garbo to speak English,' Daniels has remarked, 'but we used to talk a lot and I would correct her on certain things. We understood each other, and talked about things we both knew- movie talk."
Motion Picture News during 1926 gave the title to the film as "Ibanez' Torrent" The Exploitation Angles were given as "Feature Ricardo Cortez and Greta Garbo. Tell patrons about the letter's European success. Bill as strong emotional drama. Stress flood episode." The Production Highlights given for the film included the talent of actress Greta Garbo and "Spectacular Flood scene and unusual climax".
Rilla Page Palmborg, author of the biography The Private Life of Greta Garbo, described the premiere of "The Torrent" in California, "No one noticed Garbo as she and Mr. Stiller quietly slipped into seats at the rear of the dimly lighted house. No one saw them steal out of before the picture was finished. At the first picture Greta Garbo made in Hollywood she set the precedent of never appearing publicly at any of her pictures."
It would seem that the "prophesy" of Modern Screen Magazine was ten years premature when as early as 1931, in a Modern Screen Film Gossip section, it ran a story titled Will Greta Garbo Quit the Screen For The Stage, which held a prediction which claimed that theater director Max Reinhardt had seen a print of "The Torrent" and after having rewatched it six times had already begun negotions to direct Greta Garbo on the stage. The article, referring to her in 1931 as a "mystery woman", mentions a second offer from a "Swedish movie company", which in fact seems a more well kept, or bigger, secret.
Rilla Page Palmborg, author of the biography The Private Life of Greta Garbo, described the premiere of "The Torrent" in California, "No one noticed Garbo as she and Mr. Stiller quietly slipped into seats at the rear of the dimly lighted house. No one saw them steal out of before the picture was finished. At the first picture Greta Garbo made in Hollywood she set the precedent of never appearing publicly at any of her pictures."
It would seem that the "prophesy" of Modern Screen Magazine was ten years premature when as early as 1931, in a Modern Screen Film Gossip section, it ran a story titled Will Greta Garbo Quit the Screen For The Stage, which held a prediction which claimed that theater director Max Reinhardt had seen a print of "The Torrent" and after having rewatched it six times had already begun negotions to direct Greta Garbo on the stage. The article, referring to her in 1931 as a "mystery woman", mentions a second offer from a "Swedish movie company", which in fact seems a more well kept, or bigger, secret.
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Greta Garbo in Wild Orchids (Sidney Franklin, 1929)
Motion Picture News during 1929 quietly reported, "Clarence Brown will direct Greta Garbo in Heat for M. G.M.", later that month it adding, "Greta Garbo...has just completed The Divine Woman and will soon begin working on a new starring vehicle tentatively titled Heat adapted from an original story by John Colton. Richard Corliss has written, "Wild Orchids is a gorgeous excersize, with soft-focus sunstars glistening off the the actors' silhouettes, and countless tracking shots that give the impression of being an elegant if impotent nose-thumb in the face of the more earthbound talkies...and Wild Orchids is full of the frolicsome play of shadows. As Garbo stands indecisively outside Asther's bedroom door, light suddenly spills over her as the door is opened and his shadow crawls up her body; when he reaches her- and reaches for her, the shadow of his cupped hand falling over her breast- she retreats." Picture Play Magazine reviewed the film with, "Greta Garbo in her best role. Rather slow, but impelled by adult emotions." It later intimated that Greta Garbo was being watched, from no matter how far. In "You'd Never Know Them", A.L. Woodbridge claimed, "Greta Garbo is one of the few stars who looks so different in person, she needs no 'prop' disguise." Photoplay Magazine published, "Wild Orchids will do much for Nils Asther. Here is the role that will push the young Swedish actor up closer to stardom." It described the film with, "a story that proves tropical heat melts all conventions. The scene is java- the details are superb and the picture is a riot for audiences." Film Daily began following the film with the entry Asther Being Groomed, which read, "It looks as if Metro-Goldwyn Mayer are grooming Nils Asther to fill the vacancy that might be created by the departure of John Gilbert from the payroll of that organization. Rumor has it that Gilbert will go to United Artists..,Asther has been assigned the lead opposite Greta Garbo in her next picture Heat." A later entry followed reporting Garbo Title Change Again, "Wild Orchids and not Kiss of The East will be final title for Greta Garbo's new picture." It is not entirely marginal that there are accounts that Nils Asther had met Greta Garbo in 1924, at the Dramatiska Teatern and that he had proposed marriage to her, which she apparently declined- the autobiography of Nils Asther, Narrens jag (Fool's Way/The Way of the Jester was published in Swedish posthumously. If, in 1928, Ruth Bieiry was writing about Nils Asther in Photoplay magazine merely to obtain information about the secretive Greta Garbo, she does in fact show him in a favorable light and was genuinely interested in the actor, "Nils Asther, like Greta Garbo, was trained in the small studios of Sweden. He was accustomed to accept acting as an art rather than a short cut to wealth, fortune or position."
Rilla Page Palborg, in a biography titled "The Private Life of Greta Garbo" gave an account of meeting Greta Garbo on the set of "Wild Orchids". It soon become apparent that Greta Garbo would only film on a closed set, beyond anyone questioning whose voice distinctive voice accompanied the images. "A few days before she was to leave for Stockholm I talked to Greta Garbo. Our appointment on the set of 'Wild Orchids', then in process of production. She was acting a scene with Lewis Stone, who in the picture was her husband...Stealthily, she slipped out of bed, wrapped in a robe about her slender body, and stole from the room. The scene was taken over and over. Finally she came out and sat down beside me on an old couch that was standing on the edge of the set. 'I guess we can have a few minutes before I continue my struggle on that bed', she said wearily. 'It's almost impossible for me to keep my mind on all this. I did not want to make this picture before I went to Sweden. There is not enough enough time. My mind is running about the shops buying clothes and presents for this one and that one. But the studio made me do it.' " Greta Garbo continued the interview after decling anything for warmth, her denying that the she was cold in the M.G.M studio. "Now that I am really going home I can hardly wait to get there. I will be home for Christmas." Garbo apparently made her first reference to filming in sound in the United States, asking the journalist Palmborg if her accent was acceptable with a hopeful enthusiasm. Palmborg noted earlier that several actors had returned to Europe for just that reason, a heavy accent no matter how bilingual. Plamborg continued, "We talked about Lars Hanson and his wife, who had returned to Sweden. Her face saddened when I mentioned I mentioned her sister, who had died a year after Greta's arrival inHollywood. 'It has been hard to believe that she is really gone. When I go home I will find that it's is true."
Clarence Sinclair Bull photographed the portrait of Nils Asther that appeared in Motion Picture Magazine. After their review of Wild Orchids there was included a page entitled Home is Where the Arts Is. It read, "It is Nils Asther's conviction that inspiration for his work is not so much to be got from constant mingling with other people as from a communion with himself."
Film Daily subtitled its review to the film, "Sexy Garbo Film with Strong Feminine Appeal. Finely Done. should Get Dough." It described the film's actors, " Greta Garbo; alluring and capable; Lewis Stone gives a fine performance and Nils Asther's a handsome Shiek. The three practically carry all the action." It went on to the scenario, Exploitation of Garbo's sex appeal." while crediting John Colton as author and Marion Ainslee and Rith Cummings as having written the titles. Photplay also announced, "This is Greta Garbo's last picture before she departed for Sweden" It claimed that the story created by writer John Colton as enacted by Garbo in Wild Orchids had previously been considered for Lillian Gish. motion Picture Magazpine listed the film as Synchronized (Sound) upon its release while lending it. Recommendation, "Lewis Stone gives his always distinguished performance. And Nils is an actor, and- but see Wild Orchids. To end 1928, Film Daily reported, Garbo Re-Signed, claiming that she had signed a new contract with M.G.M, one that would allow her to go on. vacation before going into effect and speculated with a fair amount of certainty that her first picture on her return would be an adaptation of a novel written by Elinor Glyn. John Bainbridge writes,"When she finished her current film, though, she was coming home for Christmas. Stiller, excited by this piece of news..." He provides an account of Garbo recieving a telegram from Victor Sjostrom, who had been with Mauritz Stiller the previous evening, announcing Stiller having passed away, an unnamed source describing that while on the set, her composure registered and became quiet for a brief moment and that she then continued the scene. "Lars Hanson, who spent untold hours with them in Sweden and in Hollywood, is of the opinion that there existed between them a bond of mutual affection, respect and dependency, but never the normal ties of love."
Among the several advertisements published by M.G.M Studios which advertised the studio and included the film was on placed in Motion Picture News that reintroduced Greta Garbo. "The most talked about star in pictures! 'Woman in Affairs' built her fame bigger than ever. Next 'Wild Orchids' and it's a throbbing gold-getter." Typical of the studio advertising itself, John Gilbert, Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and Roman Novorro were included in the multi-page ads, "John Gilbert follows with 'Desert Night'. What a star! They all wanted him! The Big Ones stay with M.G.M."
Well into 1932, as was typical with the fan magazines of the early sound period, Movie Classic provided one of the many published retrospectives, biographies or timelines of the career of Greta Garbo and her silent film, building up the glamour aspect of her having been the enigmatic Swedish Sphinx, which included a look at The Mysterious Lady, "still another leading man, Conrad Nagel. Being married, he is safe from Greta Garbo." The magazine overlooked the marriage of Lars Hanson to Karin Molander paragraphs earlier, "(Garbo) hailed in the title role of The Divine Woman with Lars Hanson as leading man. Romance with Lars Hanson rumored." If actress Greta Garbo remained eternally silent on the rumor of an affair with Hanson, it would not have seemed out of place, as by the time it had gone to print, Lars Hanson and Victor Sjostrom had both returned to their native country Sweden with their wives. Journalist Harriet Parsons of Modern Screen Magazine looked at the availability of Greta Garbo during 1931. "After her split with Gilbert, Garbo used to see Nils occasionally. They were countrymen and shared in common a moodiness and a love of solitude...There was never more than a casual friendship between them...Nils has since married the woman he loves." While describing the personal life between Greta Garbo and Niks Asther, Parson introduced Sorenson, a blond young Swede that was dating Garbo while in the United States, and "was in love with Garbo. But Garbo wasn't in love with him." She "liked him immensely. Liked not loved." Sorenson returned to Sweden when his pass port had expired.
Among the several advertisements published by M.G.M Studios which advertised the studio and included the film was on placed in Motion Picture News that reintroduced Greta Garbo. "The most talked about star in pictures! 'Woman in Affairs' built her fame bigger than ever. Next 'Wild Orchids' and it's a throbbing gold-getter." Typical of the studio advertising itself, John Gilbert, Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and Roman Novorro were included in the multi-page ads, "John Gilbert follows with 'Desert Night'. What a star! They all wanted him! The Big Ones stay with M.G.M."
Well into 1932, as was typical with the fan magazines of the early sound period, Movie Classic provided one of the many published retrospectives, biographies or timelines of the career of Greta Garbo and her silent film, building up the glamour aspect of her having been the enigmatic Swedish Sphinx, which included a look at The Mysterious Lady, "still another leading man, Conrad Nagel. Being married, he is safe from Greta Garbo." The magazine overlooked the marriage of Lars Hanson to Karin Molander paragraphs earlier, "(Garbo) hailed in the title role of The Divine Woman with Lars Hanson as leading man. Romance with Lars Hanson rumored." If actress Greta Garbo remained eternally silent on the rumor of an affair with Hanson, it would not have seemed out of place, as by the time it had gone to print, Lars Hanson and Victor Sjostrom had both returned to their native country Sweden with their wives. Journalist Harriet Parsons of Modern Screen Magazine looked at the availability of Greta Garbo during 1931. "After her split with Gilbert, Garbo used to see Nils occasionally. They were countrymen and shared in common a moodiness and a love of solitude...There was never more than a casual friendship between them...Nils has since married the woman he loves." While describing the personal life between Greta Garbo and Niks Asther, Parson introduced Sorenson, a blond young Swede that was dating Garbo while in the United States, and "was in love with Garbo. But Garbo wasn't in love with him." She "liked him immensely. Liked not loved." Sorenson returned to Sweden when his pass port had expired.
As Film Daily scurried for the latest information on the three tone technicolor process and the wiring of movie theaters for sound, Movie Makers making reviewed the cinematography of "Wild Orchids", "The picture opens with a skillful cinematic representation of the confusion and excitement at the departure of a steamer...scenes of the dock and boat dissolve into each other and a moving camera follows the leads...the emphasis on neutral colors helps convey...although there are very few shots with definite photographic contrasts."
It would appear that during 1929 Greta Garbo was included into what could be considered either the hard cover or the textbooks of that year, but only due to an author writing in a flurry; Hands of Hollywood was printed by Mary Eunice McCarthy and the Photoplay Research Bureau with the subtitle Copyright Applied For as the world waited for Greta Garbo and Lon Chaney to speak. After a brief chapter on The Talers, it discussed The Future of Pictures by paraphrasing the view of Irving Thalberg, "He also announces that Greta Garbo and Nils Asther, both possessing decided foreign accents, have been resigned by his company under long term contracts. he says that a producer is foolish to release great public favorites in which he has invested millions of dollars for advertising and exploitation and to replace them with comparatively unknown stage players merely because of their trained voice...Greta Garbo's latest picture, "Wild Orchids" (silent) is making a tremendous amount of money and has played Broadway for two splendid weeks." Earlier in the volume, in a section that covered Continuity Writers the author had mentioned the film in regard to the qualifications and duties of writers of adaptations and the knowledge of censorship and their translating to the screen novels or plays that otherwise would be censored, A Woman of Affairs having been milder than its counterpart The Green Hat.
M.G.M placed advertisements in magazines for theater owners assuring them that projecting the film would be profitable, describing it as a "throbbing gold-getter".
Greta GarboGreta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
back to top- Greta Garbo in Wild Orchids
It would appear that during 1929 Greta Garbo was included into what could be considered either the hard cover or the textbooks of that year, but only due to an author writing in a flurry; Hands of Hollywood was printed by Mary Eunice McCarthy and the Photoplay Research Bureau with the subtitle Copyright Applied For as the world waited for Greta Garbo and Lon Chaney to speak. After a brief chapter on The Talers, it discussed The Future of Pictures by paraphrasing the view of Irving Thalberg, "He also announces that Greta Garbo and Nils Asther, both possessing decided foreign accents, have been resigned by his company under long term contracts. he says that a producer is foolish to release great public favorites in which he has invested millions of dollars for advertising and exploitation and to replace them with comparatively unknown stage players merely because of their trained voice...Greta Garbo's latest picture, "Wild Orchids" (silent) is making a tremendous amount of money and has played Broadway for two splendid weeks." Earlier in the volume, in a section that covered Continuity Writers the author had mentioned the film in regard to the qualifications and duties of writers of adaptations and the knowledge of censorship and their translating to the screen novels or plays that otherwise would be censored, A Woman of Affairs having been milder than its counterpart The Green Hat.
M.G.M placed advertisements in magazines for theater owners assuring them that projecting the film would be profitable, describing it as a "throbbing gold-getter".
Greta GarboGreta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
back to top- Greta Garbo in Wild Orchids
Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Swedish Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film
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Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
Co-Stars of Greta Garbo,
Garbo,
Greta Garbo,
Greta Garbo Clarence Brown,
Greta Garbo Nils Asther,
Greta Garbo Sidney Franklin,
Greta Garbo Silent Film,
Greta Garbo Wild Orchids,
Greta Garbo William Daniels

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