Love (1927)

Directed by Edmund Goulding. Starring Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Brandon Hurst, George Fawcett, Emily Fitzroy, Philippe De Lacy.

Silent film adaptation of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” significantly alters the text in telling its story of a politician’s unhappily married wife, Anna (Garbo), and her passionate indiscretions with an aristocratic soldier (Gilbert). Reuniting the romantic leads of Flesh and the Devil must have seemed a no-brainer, but even though they still generate a few sweltering degrees of heat, it’s a lesser Gilbert performance. Garbo’s exotic allure can’t be squashed by the unflattering staging and porous storytelling, but she also can’t save the picture from the mire of mediocrity by herself. Contemporizing the narrative to modern day doesn’t add anything. Released with two different endings, one used for the American market and one used for international prints (some US exhibitors were given a choice of which one to play); the tragic one is superior, of course, on the basis of fidelity, but even that effort is botched by the motivation—Anna’s final decision is an act of despair instead of sacrifice. Garbo went on to play Anna again in a more famous “talkie,” Anna Karenina, in 1935. Then-aspiring director Jacques Tourneur makes an uncredited appearance as an extra.

54/100