Scott Lord: Greta Garbo in The Divine Woman (1928, Victor Sjostrom)

"The Divine Woman" directed in the United States during 1928 featured three Swedish Silent Film stars from the Golden Age of Swedish Silent film, two of whom, Victor Sjostrom and Lars Hanson, would soon return to Sweden to mark the advent of sound film. Sjostrom would return to act and only act, in front of the camera rather than behind it. Only one reel of the film survives, it being presumed lost with no other footage of the film surviving other than the fragment.

Bo Florin, Stockholm University, in his volume Transition and Transformation- Victor Sjostrom in Hollywood 1923-1930, looks as a film detective not only to film critics and magazine articles printed during the first run of the film, as I have, this webpage in fact subtitled "Lost Films, Found Magazines", (please excuse the trendy contemporary use of subtitles during peer review) but also to the the cutting continuity script, his finding a specific sequence where Sjostrom uses "a combination between iris and dissolve", one which, as an iris down, fulfills the "classic Sjostrom function of an analogy". There are two other dissolves in the same sequence that are used as transitions, spatial transitions, yet both are taken from different camera distances. It is a contonuity cutting script from which author Bo Florin has found fifty four dissolves that were used in the film. Again, no footage from the scene or the reel it is from survives. One can ask if double exposures were only infrequently published in magazines or advertisements as publicity stills, or even as lobby cards or posters and if modern audiences have ever seen photographs from the scene.

Journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, in The Private Life of Greta Garbo fulfills the search for Lost Film, Found Magazines when giving an account of being on the set of 'The Divine Woman' for a rare interview with Greta Garbo, giving a description of what what on film in a film we at presenent no longer have. "There came a shy little French girl and a young officer wlaking slowly down the street. They paused in a doorway. The officer asked a frowsy inkeeper for lodgings. The girl looked up shyly at the officer. She hesitated a moment, raised up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. Then she hurried past him up the stairs. 'Cut' shouted the director." The director was in fact Swedish Silent Film director Victor Sjostrom, Greta Garbo leaving the set in a high collared cape to bring journalist Rilla Page Palmborg to her dressing room. The commodity Garbo at that time? The journalist had obtained the interview not to ask about Lars Hanson, Victor Sjostrom or the upcoming film "The Divine Woman", but was admittedly there to ask Garbo about her tabloid romance with actor John Gilbert. The dressing room was small and on wheels and Garbo politely expressed concern if they both would fit into it. Greta Garbo answered the question regarding her intentions of marriage with "it is only a friendship. I will never marry. My work absorbs me. I have time for nothing else. But I think Jack Gilbert is one of the finest men I have ever known." There would seem a contradiction between the onscreen Garbo who 'nearly invented the torrid love scene' and the extratextural discourse of pursuing the reclusive hermit Garbo everywhere- oddly enough Palmborg claims that the relationship between Garbo and Lars Hanson and his wife Karin Molander was more professional than social although Hanson and Garbo arrived from Sweden at the same time with Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller. Swedish Silent Film actress Karin Molander explained, " 'Garbo never had any friends with whom she chummed around in Stockholm.' said Mrs. Hanson. 'When we knew her she was devoted to Mauritz Stiller. He seemed to be the only person with whom she would associate.' "

Paul Rotha, in his volume The Film Till Now, commented on the topic that would be taken up by Bo Florin during this century, the artistic differences between the films made by Victor Sjostrom for Svensk Filmindustri, Stockholm and for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Hollywood. "But Sjostrom has ceased to develop. He remains stationary in his outlook thinking in terms of his early Swedish imagery. He has recently made little use of the progress of cinema itslef. 'The Divine Woman', although it had the Greta Garbo of 'The Atonement of Gosta Berling' had none of the lyricism, the poetic imagery of the earlier film."

Victor Sjostrom and Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo in The Temptress

Greta Garbo in The Torrent
Silent Greta Garbo

Scott Lord Scandinavian Silent Film: The Gardner (Tradgardsmastanen, Vic...

Banned in Sweden during 1912, "The Gardner", written by Mauritz Stiller and directed by Victor Sjostrom was thought to be lost untill a surviving copy was found sixty eight years later in the Library of Congress. The film stars Victor Sjostrom with Lilli Bech, Muaritz Stiller, Gosta Ekman and John Ekman. It was the directorial debut of Victor Sjostrom, unscreened during his lifetime. Actress Karin Alexandersson who appears in the film that year also appeared in the film "Froken Julie", directed by Anna Hofmann-Uddgren..

Was the film Scandinavian sensationalism made in response to Asta Neilsen starring in the film "The Abyss"? The film did successfully premiere in Denmark and Norway, during 1912 and 1913 respectively. (To modern auiences the film's theme of incest/seduction is depicted before both the Suffragete movement for women's voting rights and before much of Frued's writing on the Electra Complex- there remains an ostensible theme of Seduction, or perhaps an element of exploitation in the film.) Marina Dahlquist, in her article "The Best-Known Woman in the World", chronicles, "Charles Magnusson published the booklet "Nagra om Biografcensuren (A few remarks on film censorship) in the name of Svenska Bio regarding its appeal of the ban against three films, among them "Tradgardsmastaren/Varldensgrymhet" (The Broken Springrose/The Gardner [1912]). Even though the importance of censorship was acknowledged by Magnusson and others, the over zealous ambition to protect even an adult audience met with irony."


Also that year Victor Sjostrom directed the film "A Ruined Life" (Ett hemligt giftermal) co-scipted with Charles Magnusson and starring Hilda Bjorgstrom, Einar Froberg, Anna Norrie, and Greta Almroth in the first film in which she was to appear.

Author Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema, Ingeborg Holm to Fanny Alexander notes the numerous location shots employed to showcase Victor Sjostrom's future wife, Lilli Beck during the film. Peter Cowie quickly references that Lilli Bech and Victor Sjostrom were formerly married between 1914-1916. The actress starred with Victor Sjostrom onscreen under the direction of Mauritz Stiller the following year, during 1913 with a script written by Stiller and photographed by Julius Jaenzon with "Vampyren", a film presently presumed to be lost, with no existing surviving copies. That year Victor Sjostrom and Lilli Bech were also paired onscreen by Mauritz Stiller in the film "Barnet", with Einar Froberg and Anna Norrie, photographed again by Julius Jaenzon. The film is also presumed lost with no existing surviving copies.



Actor John Eckman, who appeared on screen in a score of films between 1912 and 1950 before his appearing with Victor Sjostrom in the Ingmar Bergman film "Till Joy" (Till gladje,1950), directed only one film, it also being the first film in which he was to appear. Before having appeared during 1912 in the film "Tradgardsmasteren", under the direction of Victor Sjostrom and during 1912 in the film "De Svarta Maskerna" under the direction of Mauritz Stiller, Ekman directed the film "The Shepherd Girl" (Saterjantan,1912), starring actress Greta Almroth, Carlo Weith and Stina Berg in her first onscreen appearance, the film having had been photographed by Hugo Edlund for Svenska Biographteatern. Victor Sjostrom would direct John Ekman, Lilli Bech and himself from his own script during 1914, adding the actress Greta Almroth in the film "Daughter of the High Mountain" (Hogfallets dotter), photographed by Julius Jaenzon. The film is presumed to be lost, presently there being no surviving existing copies.

Apparently the film "Den Svarte Doktorn" filmed for Stora Biografteatern by Frans Lundberg is not only a lost film, with no surviving copies exusting, but was also banned at the time of production by Swedish Censorship. The film starred actress Olivia Norrie, Einar Zangenberg, and Holger-Madsen. "Anfortrodda medel", also made by Frans Lundberg in 1911 is also presumed to be a lost film with no surviving copies existing and was also banned by Swedish censorship. The film starred actresses Phillipa Fredricksen and Agnes Nyrup Christensen.

Interestingly enough, Swedish Silent Film cinematographer camerman Julius Jaenzon brought his equipment aboard the S.S. Lusitania during 1912 to make the film "Tva Svenska Emigranters Afventyr i Amerika", starring actresses Lisa Holm and Lilly Jacobsson under the direction of Eric Malmberg. It might be worth noting before continuing to the dynamic between the four horsemen of Swedish Silent Film, Victor Sjostrom, Mauritz Stiller, Julius Jaenson and Charles Magnusson, that another director was there at Svenska Biografteatern during 1912, director Eric Malmberg. Seemingly overlooked, Malmberg directed six films for Svenska Biografteatern during 1912, including films presumed to be lost with no surving copies photographed by Julius Jaenzon and starring actress Lilly Jacobsson, among them "Det Grona Halsbandet", "Stolen Happiness" (Branniger eller Stulen lycka) and "Kolingens Galoscher".

Silent Film Victor Sjostrom Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller

Greta Garbo before Hollywood- Lars Hanson

The 1927 article "Swedish Hospitality featured in Motion Picture Magazine gave an account of journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, author of "The Private Life of Greta Garbo", being entertained by actor Lars Hanson and his wife, Swedish actress Karin Molander. It began, " 'And now we shall see if you like real Swedish cooking,' said Lars Hanson as he escorted us across the velvety green lawn of his walled garden, where for the past hour we had sat enthralled by the tales he and his charming wife had told us of their native land...This was a Sunday supper to which we had been invited. 'My wife prepared everything when I her that I had promised you real Swedish cooking.' Said Mr. Hanson as we took our places at a long refectory table in a long, rather narrow and dignified dining-room."

Fact may be just as exiciting as fiction to historians when we think that the events of the nineteenth century, depicted in the twentieth, are already culturally different from ours, especially in film the show the humanity that we still do have in common, or rather psychological insights about characters in moral dilemas; in fact Moving Picture World contrasted the character portrayed by Lars Hanson in John Robertson's film with a "more straitlaced" character that Hanson had played earlier for Victor Sjostrom in his depiction of Puritan Colonialism, "The Scarlet Letter". Photoplay reviewed the film. "A well knit drama is this story of how the gospel ship came into being." A ship embarks from the Boston waterfront and is saved from shipwreck off to become apparently a then "floating church" The film might be historically inaccurate about the date triangular trade hade ended in regard to the War of 1812. Motion Picture News subtitled their review with a "Rugged, Well Acted Story of the first Gospel Ship" while the periodical Motion Picture News subtitled their review with "Lars Hanson and Pauline Starke in Gripping Drama of Founding of First Gospel Ship". The subtitles used in Motion Picture World were directed more toward the jazz age- one page announcing the film "Flesh and the Devil" in which Lars Hanson, starred with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, as being busy "Cleaning Up" at the box office, while "Captain Salvation" was in production for Cosmopolitan with "Wild Crew Now Sails the Main". Motion Picture World announced that the seventy five actors of the studio were filming exterior scenes ar Catalina Island, the "dramatic action" filmed after having "set sail" on the "high seas".

Picture Play magazine during 1927 featured stills from the eight reel film "Captain Salvation", starring Lars Hanson. They were captioned with, "Lars Hanson has another intensely dramatic role in 'Captain Salvation', that of a young New Englander whose heart is in the sea, but who is forced his uncle to go onto the ministry...Marceleine Day as the girl who waits for him at home." Motion Picture News Booking Guide during 1927 provided a brief synopsis of the film, "Theme: Melodrama of the sea. Adaptation of the novel by Fredrick William Wallace, Divinity Student forsakes the pulpit for the sea, forgets his faith and becomes aide of a much feared skipper. His regeneration is brought about through an unfortunate girl he befriends. After her death he is reunited with his sweetheart." The cameraman to the film is listed as William Daniels and the scenarist as Jack Dunningham. Photoplay Magazine reviewed the eight reel silent film, "Pauline Starke is Excellant as the waterfront derelict." In a photo caption to a full page portrait of Pauline Starke, Picture Play magazine introduced her upcoming film, "If you saw 'Captain Salvation' you have no doubt of Pauline Starke's dramatic gifts. If you did not, you will find proof of them in 'Fallen Angles'". Magazine advertisements published by the studio announced that "Captain Salvation" was a Cosmopolitan production for M.G.M. "on a lavish scale" ephasizing that the novel by Frederick William Wallace was soon to be serialized for millions of readers and an "unprecedented promotion campaign" would be launched by Hearst newspapers.

Swedish Silent Film: Monastery of Sendomir (Klostret I Sendomir, Victor Sjostrom,1920)

Bo Florin, Stockholm University, in his volume Transition and Transformation, Victor Sjostrom in Hollywood 1923-1930, points to Victor Sjostrom's use of dissolves in the film "Monastery of Sedomir" as "transformatory devices", to thematiclly link two images. "The dissolve works, in other words, as an independent device, which does not in this context recieve any clarifying support from any other narrative patterns." The character, and the setting in which he placed, change as motif with the dissolve.

"The Monastery of Sendomir" (Klostret i Sendomir) was written and directed for Svenska Biografteatern by Victor Sjostrom during 1920. Photographed by Henrik Jaenzon the film starred actresses Tora Teje, Renee Bjorling and Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson. The screenplay was adapted from a short story by Franz Grillparzer that, despite whatever reason Sjostrom had for choosing the material, had been filmed a year earlier, in Germany, by director Rudolph Meinert, starring actress Ellen Richter.

Victor Sjostrom

The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjostrom, 1920) Please screen the films below directed in Sweden by Victor Sjostrom as any double feature you see fit.

Greta Garbo

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney in Victory (Maurice Tourneur, 1919)

Robert Gordon Anderson, in his 1971 volume Faces, Forms, Films, the artistry of Lon Chaney, writes about the film "Victory" (five reels), directed by Maurice Tournuer. "The picture had good reviews despite some distortion of the storyline", liberties having been taken while adapting the literary work of Joseph Conrad.

Robert G. Anderson writes, "Not all of the movies being turned out were made without regard for the artistic nature of the media. Many directors strove to create something of a more lasting nature, utilizing photographt, lighting, settings, acting, editing to create what they wanted. Maurice Tourneur was one of them. Tourneur's film of Joseph Conrad's Victory included another of Lon Chaney's villainous portraits."

Twenty four silent films directed by Maurice Tourneur between 1912-1926 are presumed lost, with no surviving copies, among them being "While Paris Sleeps" (1923) and "Treasure Island" (1920), both having starred Lon Chaney.

Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney Silent Film Lon Chaney

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney in The Scarlet Car (DeGrasse, 1917)

Directed by Joseph de Grasse during 1917, "The Scarlet Claw" starred Lon Chaney, Franklin Farnum and Edith Johnson.

During 1917, Joseph de Grasse also directed Franklin Farnum and Lon Chaney in the film "Anything Once", with actress Marjorie Lawrence. Although the film is not yet presumed to be lost, it is unknown if any copies now survive.

Silent Film

Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney in The Trap (Thomby, 1922)

"The Trap" (six reels) by directed by Robert Thorby featured both actors Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney Jr. The scenario of "The Trap" was written by George C. Hull from a story by Lon Chaney. The film was photographed by cameraman Virgil Miller. Lon Chaney.

Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney Movie Posters

Scott Lord Silent Film: Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (Melford,1921)

The 1921 Photoplay review of "The Sheik", starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayers may or may not infact seem cryptic to modern readers, "For the glamor and beauty of the desert, the colorful costumes, the real love story lend themselves to shadows...The whole is more or less a tangible version of 'Pale hands I love, beside the Shalimar, where are you now, who lies beneath thy spell.' But we wonder what the censors will do to to it."

silent film

Rudolph Valentino

Greta Garbo in Flesh and the Devil (Clarence Brown, 1926)

After listing "Tower of Lies as a reunion of Victor Sjostrom, Norma Shearer and Lon Chaney from the film "He Who Gets Slapped", and that Lon Chaney would "appear in another stunning vehicle..Title and details to be announced soon", a magazine advertisement paid for by M.G.M announcing its 52 quality films of 1925-1926 listed the film "Flesh and the Devil" as "The Victor Seastrom-John Gilbert special. Sjostrom as director, Gilbert as star make a marvelous money-winning combrination. It is the sucessor to 'He Who Gets Slapped'.

It is difficult to find notice that Victor Sjostrom had been originally slated to direct Greta Garbo and yet it is unlikely that Marcus Loew would have been in error. It is only by flash forwarding to Greta Garbo's fourth film and by claiming that her first three were already in the planning stage without her that we can see the phenomenon of Greta Garbo as having arisen from a combined phenomenon of Greta Garbo/John Gilbert, which it inevitably did. Moving Picture World of 1925 published the predictions of the then President of Metro-Goldwyn. " 'The Flesh and the Devil' is a Victor Seastrom-John Gilbert Special. It is by Herman Suderman. It will be directed by Seastrom, the man who made 'He Who Gets Slapped' and I don't know what better recommendation there is than that. There will be one other John Gilbert production, title and details of which we will announce later." The question is did Loew publish this before director Monte Bell had seen the screen test of Greta Garbo spliced into the rushes of "The Temptress", which would entail his holding The Flesh and The Devil for her during the completion of two film in production- it is quite possibly in that Loew at the same time had announced " 'The Torrent' by Ibanez will have Aileen Pringle in the leading role and this also will be a Cosmopolitan Picture made at our studio. It will be big in every way."

During 1927, the paid magazine advertisements M.G.M. published for "Flesh and the Devil" had resorted to "Hot damn! What a great picture."

For those interested in how the Greta Garbo John Gilbert pairing did come about from 1925 onward, Loew happenned to add, "There will be one Fred Niblo production on our schedule. Details on this picture have not been completed as yet and will be announced later." There literally seemed to be more excitement about the film "The Mysterious Island" containing Technicolor sequences than anyone named Greta Garbo speaking on the screen with John Barrymore.

Garbo photographer William Daniels in 1926, in addition to lighting Garbo and Gilbert was also cinematographer to the films Altars of Desire (seven reels)) under Christy Cabanne and Bardley the Magnificient under the direction of King Vidor; that is not to say that that is the limit of his contribution to film history; Daniel's had trained on several of Von Strohiem's important films, beginning with Blind Husbands in 1919 and continued in Hollywood after the making of the 1939 film Ninotchka, until 1970. Daniels has been deemed an "inventor of detail" for his ingenuity by American Cinematographer magazine and it was noted that during the silent era he would light the scene with a stand-in and use a bicycle horn when finished and ready to replace the figure with the film's star.  Although Daniels seems uncredited for his photography on Von Strohiem's "The Merry Widow", starring John Gilbert and Mae Murray, he is noted for work on the 1925 film "Woman and Gold" (James  P. Hogan) for Gotham Productions,  film which starred actress Sylvia Breamer.  Film historian Leo Braudy has written, "The lighting that William Daniels created for Garbo's early silent film rendered her more erotic than any spoken dialogue."

     Hollywood magazine during 1935 printed the article,"Garbo's cameraman Talks At Last", in which William Daniels primarily, for whatever reason, dispelled some of the more than prevalent publicity about Greta Garbo having been " gloomy, aloof, frightened or imperious" It claimed that he had originally become Garbo's cameraman when the studio ace that had been assigned to the film "The Torrent" had on the third day encountered an accident and needed a crushed finger amputated and with the studio busy, only young William Daniels was available to film Garbo. In light of what Daniels said during the filming of Anna Karenina, it would stand to reason that where Greta Garbo was foreign, the studio might reassign the same film crew in her pictures that were to follow. Daniels is quoted as having said, "She's changed. Developed. Matured. Ten years ago, she was a young girl undergoing the bewildering experience of finding herself suddenly famous in a land whose language she couldn't understand. She kept her head then, as she has ever since. Don't imagine she has had an easy time. For instance, look at the way she has perfected her English. I don't think she has learned so much by study as actually making herself use the language...And Miss Garbo is fond of America. She loves the Californian sunlight, basking in it, walking in it, incessantly."

      There is an account of Rowland V. Lee having met Greta Garbo when she had first been introduced to the United States in 1925, "Jack Gilbert was all she wanted to talk about."

     Greta Garbo and John Gilbert were to attend the premiere of Bardley the Magnificient (Vidor/Daniels,1926) together. Motion Picture magazine printed, "Hollywood is still talking. The newspaper wires still buzz everytime ther telephones the other. Yet in spite of this, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert dare appear at openings and other Hollywood functions."  During this screen writer Dorothy Farnum ran magazine advertisements announcing her having written the screenplay to the film Bardley the Magnificient and the portrait from the film of John Gilbert printed in Motion Picture magazine had been taken by Ruth Harriet Louise. 1926 was also the year that Greta Garbo, John Gilbert and Lars Hanson would film an adaptation of the novel The Undying Past, bringing its plotline to the screen untill its emotional concluding scene at the Isle of Friendship during Flesh and the Devil Picture Play magazine during 1927 published what seems to be a seldom seem photograph of Greta Garbo and Jack Gilbert, their staring at each other across a table. In When Hollywood Discovered Bridge, the caption below the four playing cards read, "The Flesh and the Devil quartet- Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson, Jack Gilbert and Director Clarence Brown- more than once took time off during the production to play a hurried rubber. as may be seen, though, Greta and Jack, who are usually partners didn't give their full attention to the game." As posed, they are looking at each other with a sense of either impending doom, or a mutual consent that would soon decide to spring into action, as though the photograph were staged.

     Clarence Sinclair Bull published a portrait of Lars Hanson in Picture Play magazine during 1927. it's caption read, "That slow intent gaze which was so powerful a factor in making Hanson's Reverend Dimmesdale in 'The Scarlet Letter' a convincing portrayal is here pictured with equally telling effect. Hanson will next be seen in 'The Flesh and the Devil'.

Biographer John Bainbridge quotes Clarence Brown as though Brown had contributed to the mythical quality of any romance between Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, adding celluloid, or perhaps, tinsel rather, to the publicity it had already acquired, " 'I am working with raw material,' Brown said rather breathlessly. 'They are working in that blissful state of love that is so like a rosy cloud that they imagine themselves hidden behind it, as well as lost in it.'"

      For Photoplay Agnes Smith in 1927 wrote the intrigue between John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, "He worked with her in a picture called Flesh and the Devil. He proclaimed his intention of marrying her. As for Greta she seemed to enjoy the rush. And then, when everyone was all set for another Hollywood wedding, Greta walked out...John Gilbert sticks to his story...She is a wonderful woman. A delightful woman And the most fascinating woman in pictures. 'She is,' says Mr. Gilbert, 'a mountian of a girl. She is a statue. There is something eternal about her. Not only did she baffle me, but she baffled everyone at the studio.'"

Of her off-screen Clarence Brown romance with John Gilbert, Clarence Brown has been quoted as having said, "After i finsihed a scene with them, I felt like an intruder. I'd walk away to let them finish what they were doing." Brown has also been quoted as having said, "Those two were in a world of their own." Bainbridge quotes the director with, "Clarence Brown introduced them on the set of Flesh and the Devil, 'It was love at first sight,'and it lasted through many years.'" As a biographer, Bainbridge estimates the facets involved in the relationship, "her response to Gilbert's gaily insistent attention was quick, though it was not her nature that it should have been precipitous...Because of their work, Garbo and Gilbert spent all of their days together, and Gilbert took advantage of every oppurtunity to press his cause...Off the set, Gilbert and Garbo were also getting better acquainted. They often dined together, and the young actress became a rather frequent visitor a Gilbert's Tower Road mansion." This estimation reveals Gilbert's advance, "When 'Flesh and the Devil' was finished, Gilbert asked Garbo to marry him- a proposal that he was to make more than once again." The account in Photoplay written by Agnes Smith is very much like John Bainbridge's, "A great many stories have been broadcast concerning the romance of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. The scenario, according to Hollywood's most reliable gossips runs something like this. John met the beautiful Scandinavian and immediately started an impetuous courtship. He made no secret of his devotion to the lovely Greta. He accompanied her to all the parties. He lunched with her and dined with her." When "Flesh and the Devil" was reviewed by Photoplay Magazine, it was seen as "a picture filmed when the romance of Jack Gilbert and Greta Garbo (see Jack's story in this issue) was at its height." It saw the performance of Greta Garbo as "flashing" whereas that of John Gilbert was delivered by one who "does overshadow his scenes".
Picture Play Magazine in the beginning of 1927 playfully alluded to the meteoric notoriety of Greta Garbo by reintroducing her to magazine audiences as the mystery new to stardom, but elusive by virtue of her celebrity with a portrait taken by Ruth Harriet Louise; its caption read, "That sad, sad look on Greta Garbo's face is deceiving. She's really very happy over here in America and they say that she loved working with John Gilbert in 'Flesh and the Devil'."

Journalist I.W Irving, during 1926, expalined the film and the act of audience reception in the periodical Hollywood Topics, "As for John Gilbert, well...its one of the best things her ever did. The flapper will simply rave ober him. His love scenes with Greta Garbo will go in motion picture history as a momentous inspiration. And Greta Garbo...she's simply bewitching. The male element will undoubtedly rave over her. So will the female element, for they themselves will learn a few things in the art of love making...But it is Gilbert and Garbo in their great scenes that put the picture over as a directorial triumph."

During the middle of 1927 Photoplay featured the two pictured together in the News and Gossip of the Studios section, "All bets are off on the Garbo-Gilbert wedding. For at least five days Hollywood was in a flurry of excitement. Jack and Greta, fairest of Fjordland, were rumored to have trekked to a neighboring hamlet and murmurred, "I do." A search of marriage license permits revealed nothing. There is bleak silence from the two." Bainbridge adds, "'Gilbert pleaded and begged that they should marry, but Garbo just did not want to,' the director Clarence Brown said recently." Picture Picture magazine during 1927 queries Is the Gilbert-Garbo Match Really Off? Prompted by journalist Dorothy Herzog. The accompanying portrait of Jack Gilbert was photographed by Ruth Harriet Louise with the caption, "There can be no doubt that Jack Gilbert is saddened by the unhappy turn taken by what promised to be his great romance". She began, "She is a thousand years old. She came into the world with all it's knowledge. She knows everything, and instinctively remembers everything.' 'and you love Greta Garbo?', we interrupted. Jack Gilbert's shadowed eyes swept our face swiftly, then looked away. 'She is. Wonderful girl. We were merely good pals,' he evaded, alertly on the defensive. 'is it true you were engaged to her?' 'We were never engaged.' ------ Back to Greta Garbo John Gilbert M.G.M.advertised Greta Garbo in 1927, it often taking full page magazine pages that mentioned several actors and actresses that were currently at the studio at any given time. Garbo had become, "The most sensational find in years, she clicked immediately in The Torrent, then in The Temptress and now Flesh and the Devil" Later it advertised, "Greta Garbo's amazing hold on the public cannot be duplicated anywhere in this industry. Flesh and the Devil is just a foretaste of the money she means for the theaters. " --------- Collen Moore must have read about or in fact contacted the Greta Garbo apparition; during 1928 she compared herself to Greta Garbo by coming to her aid in Motion Picture Classic Magazine, "most of the greatly beloved women of history- they have been possessed of the childish appeal, every one of them. Perhaps not so much childish as wistful, whimsical. Seems a funny thing to say, but Greta Garbo has it too. Really, she romps and plays it less than that worn-out term, vamp, than anyone I know. In its way, it gets across." In an interview during which she outlines her having met John Gilbert, Greta Garboas quoted by Ruth Biery in The Story of Greta Garbo, said, "When I finisihed The Temptress, they gave me the script for The Flesh and the Devil to read. I did not like the story. I did not want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures." This is oddly echoed by National Board of Review Magazine, in which the conclusion was drawn that, "the leading contributor to the success of Flesh and the Devil is Greta Garbo" It provided a synopsis of the film that also lent a background to its addressing the desire of Greta Garbo to leave her earlier " ladies of vampire repute" characters and to be seen as a more serious dramatic, or perhaps romantic dramatic, actress. it primarily sees her as having been a then more believable character, " Miss Garbo in her later day personal ion shows a frail physique and a fragile ethereal air. She is infinitely more civilized and all the more suitable for not being so deliberate."

Scott Reisfeld, the great nephew of Greta Garbo, reiterates the sentiment that Greta Garbo was dissatified with her assignments and needed to play more demanding characters in her reluctance to star in the film "Women Love Diamonds" but he also questions the part played by Louis B. Mayer in generating the conception of Garbo being a recluse, to which she may have merely acquiesced, "But Mayer was persistent in his attempts to compel Garbo into submission. He intiated a smear campaign in the media to depict Garbo as a megalomaniac. A negative media campaign supported threats to deport her."

The portrait of Greta Garbo that year had been photographed by Ruth Harriet Louise, the caption reading, "We are feverishingly waiting her performance opposite John Gilbert in Flesh and the Devil." By then, it was increasingly unnecessary to introduce her as a rising star. The photograph of Greta Garbo Ruth Harriet Louise published in Photoplay carried a caption referring to her as "the object of John Gilbert's fervant wooing". In regard to the direction of Clarence Brown, Motion Picture new reviwed the film during 1927 with, "And Clarence Brown, who has advanced so rapidly the past year, has brought out every point to build a story which fascinates in its paly of caprice and feeling. It is touched with sex- but sex never becomes rampant. It always remains a film of visual excellence...Early scenes project the development of the affair. What follows are the dramatic complications which culminate in a happy ending- the only flaw in the picture." Under the magazine's section on Explotation Angles, it advised: "Play up Gilbert and Garbo. Use stills. Cash in on title. Play up director. Go the limit." When the film was reviewed by Motion Picture Magazine the film was praised with, "Here is one of the best pictures reflected upon the screen in many a moon, the perfection of which is only marred by the ending, which appears tacked on, as an afterthought...Greta is a beautiful nymphomaniac...You never feel the chaos she causes exaggerated. she's attractive enough to wreak has ok in a man's world." Paul Rotha reviewed a what he deemed to be "a film of more than passing cleverness" directed by Clarence Brown, "Flesh and the Devil had some pretensions to be called a good film. The theme was sheer, undiluted sex,and Brown used a series of close ups to get this across with considerable effect. Notable also was his use of Ngles, different indeed from customary German and American method and the happiness with which he settled his characters in their environment." Back to Greta Garbo John Gilbert Greta Garbo and Jack Gilbert in Love< Film Daily during 1926 sported two interesting entries. During September it wrote, "Marcel de Sarno, director, and Raymond Doyle, scenarist, returned to M.G.M. studios after a trip for research data for Ordeal, which de Sarno will direct with Greta Garbo and Lon Chaney. In November, Film Daily reported, "Clarence Brown, who has just completed the direction of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Flesh and the Devil is preparing to direct Lillian Gish's next production, The Wind, screen adaptation by Frances Marion of Dorothy Scarborough's story. It seems either misprint or misquote that Exhibitor's Trade Review had earlier, during 1925, published, "Miss Alice Scully, a young scenario writer wrote the script for Stella Maris...since the first of the year has also written scripts for Parisian Love and "The Undying Past"Greta GarboGreta Garbo

Greta Garbo

Scott Lord Silent Film: America (D.W. Griffith, 1924)

Directed by D. W. Griffith the photographer of the film "America" (fifteen reels) was Hendrik Sartov. The film stars Carol Dempster and Neil Hamilton. Author Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, deemed "America" to be "the last film of importance" from director D.W. Griffith and noted the film for its "remarkable war scene". Although the storyline of the film, set during the American Revolution and The Old North Church, is presented as needing to be driven by Sam Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere, author Edward Wagenkneckt, in The Films of D.W. Griffith, writes, "'America' has no unbroken line of personal interest, and all the characters stand in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by history. Griffith moves them about from place to place like pieces on a checkerboard as the exingencies of the war or the story seem to require." The story begins by following a minute man, one of the Sons of Liberty at the outbreak of the war at the Battlesof Lexington and Concord. Author Edward Wagerneckt concluded on "the last of Giffith's top rank films", "Photographically America was an unqualified trumph. Scene after scene of breathtaking beauty crossed the screen."

A photocaption placed in Motion Picture Magazine during 1924 read,"THe Battle of Bunker Hill is one of the most thrilling episodes of the picture...excelled only by the inspiring and breathtaking ride of Paul Revere." Photoplay Magazine durng 1924 described the film as "one of the greatest thrill pictures ever made...Mr. Hamilton is pushed into stardom and Miss Dempster does the best work of her carreer."

The periodical Picture Play Magazine during 1924 relflected upon D.W. Griffith's striving for historical accuracy in his images of the American Revolution and his visiting important locations and his searching for "every available historic spot" which may have been preserved, in the article Mr. Griffith's Next Production, "At this writing, Mr Griffith is doing interiors at his Mamoroneck studio...And a little later, when snow has fallen, he will set out to do scenes at Valley Forge".
During 1924, D.W Griffith also directed Carol Dempster and Neil Hamilton in the film “Isn’t Life Wonderful?” (nine reels).

It is not without interest that Tom Gunning, in his volume on D.W. Griffith and The Biograph Film Company, chronicles that before his having entered filmmaking, Griffith had written an unproduced play entitled "War" that, staged within the context of the American Revolution, had also centered around the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Silent Film

D.W. Griffith D. W. Griffith

Scott Lord Shakespeare in Silent Film: The Taming of the Shrew (D.W. Gri...

Robert Hamilton Ball, in his volume Shakespeare on Silent Films explains the increase of adaptations of Shakespeare's plays during 1908-1911. "By 1908, the story film had become general...Moreover, his variety of scenes fitted well with new conceptions of scenario structure, with cutting and editing." Ball notes that D.W. Griffith follows The Taming of the Shrew chronologically but only uses four or five scenes to explicate its central incidents. Ball points out that there are no explanatory intertitles used in the film, which could have been used in the exposition of plot, but that Shakespeare was also at liberty to use long passages of supplementary dialougue when writing plays. He offers a claim that there were ten Shakespearean films made in the United States alone during 1908 while noting that in regard to recent transnational studies of the recent historiography of silent film that "there were no doubt cross-influences from country to country." Only one of these adaptations were from the Kalem Studios, As You Like It and only one was produced by Biograph. The is scant information pertaining to the film Julius Caesar, produced that year by Lubin. The film adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew" filmed in Great Britain during 1911 by Frank R Benson starring Constance Benson is a lost film, of which there are no surviving copies. Actress Florence Lawrence had come to Biograph Film Company from Vitagraph, which had produced several adaptations of Shakespeare that year, and camerman Arthur Marvin was being trained by innovator Billy Bitzer. King Lear
Shakespeare in Denmark

Swedish Silent Film

silent film Swedish Silent Film