Flesh and the Devil

Leo and Ulrich have been friends since childhood. Returning from their military training, Leo sees Felicitas at a railway station and is captivated. Felicitas is married. The scandal that follows ends in a duel and Leo is sent into exile in Africa. Coming back three years later he learns who Felicitas married, and what has come between the two friends can no longer be taken back. Clarence Brown's film brought Greta Garbo and John Gilbert together for the first time. The two genuinely fell in love during shooting and the tension on screen feeds off it; audiences at the time knew. The film's horizontal love scene and its close-up kiss are counted among the first of their kind in American cinema. Irving Thalberg produced and MGM distributed. It opened on 25 December 1926 and, as Garbo's third American film, established her career for good. Who it's for: Viewers who like silent cinema, Garbo, and classic Hollywood melodrama. Who it's not for: The narrative runs in melodramatic shapes and the woman is constructed entirely as a moral threat. The ending does not disturb that frame.