Flesh and the Devil (1926)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pretty Good

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Directed by five time Best Director Oscar nominee Clarence Brown, this essential silent drama, co-written by Benjamin Glazer, features Greta Garbo in her third American film, following Torrent (1926) and The Temptress (1926), all of which were released in the same year. It's also the first of her four pairings with actor John Gilbert, their last was Queen Christina (1933), and first of seven with director Brown. In this film, Garbo serves as the woman in a love triangle with soldier Gilbert and wealthy Lars Hanson. Gilbert's and Hanson's characters had grown up childhood pals who'd made a "blood" pact on "Friendship" island. This film was added to the National Film Registry in 2006.Upon returning from military service, Leo (Gilbert) meets and falls in love with Felicitas (Garbo), unaware that she's a married woman. When her husband the Count (Marc McDermott) returns to find them together in an uncompromising position, he challenges Leo to a duel. Leo kills the Count and is persuaded by Pastor Voss (George Fawcett), aware of the affair, to go away for 5 years. Before he leaves, Leo asks his childhood "blood brother", now rich Ulrich von Eltz (Hanson) to look after the widow, telling him the dispute with the Count was over a card game.While returning from his self imposed exile, Leo dreams of nothing but Felicitas. He returns to his mother (Eugenie Besserer) and finds that Ulrich's sister Hertha (Barbara Kent) now lives with her, since her older brother's wedding. Hertha has always had a crush on Leo. When Leo finds that Ulrich's wife is Felicitas, he is crestfallen to the point of jeopardizing their long friendship. Felicitas intervenes to tell Leo that Ulrich is lost without his childhood friend, and Leo reconciles with his friend without revealing his past with Felicitas. Even though Pastor Voss preaches against it, when Ulrich is absent on business, Felicitas seduces Leo once again. Pastor Voss councils Leo about the Devil, who uses the Flesh to try and tempt men who are otherwise of great character.When Ulrich returns, he catches Leo in Felicitas bedroom. She had been willing to run away with Leo, but when he refused, she was satisfied with just continuing their affair. So, Leo was strangling her when Ulrich walked in. She accuses Leo of disloyalty and a resigned Leo admits it's the truth. Ulrich challenges Leo to a duel the next morning on Friendship island, the place of their childhood "blood" pact. While their duel has begun, Felicitas rushes to stop it when she falls through the frozen ice surrounding the island and drowns. Unaware of this, but aware that his friend Leo is about to willingly take his bullet, Ulrich realizes the truth ... that Leo had shot the Count because he was in love with Felicitas. The two men renew their friendship and leave the island arm in arm.

Let this begin by my outing myself as an unashamed card-carrying political correctness Luddite. In reading several of the reviews already posted here I was shocked, shocked to find that there was grumbling going on in here. *SPOILER ALERT* One reviewer made reference to misogynism because Felicitas drowns in freezing water beneath a layer of ice and the guys rediscover the depth of their friendship. Allegedly, this happens because it is a male dominated world and women always get the **** end of the morality stick. Sorry...not buying that. She gets it in a wonderfully symbolically perfect (for her character) way (recall Frost's Fire and Ice). AND...17 years later when Phyllis Dietrichson gets offed by Walter Neff I don't think anyone was crying foul because she dies on screen and Walter is left to ponder his inevitable fate in the arms of his pal, Keyes, during the fade out. While watching Flesh and The Devil I was struck several times how noirish was the story line and some of the camera work. The film was shot so well that it was hard to take my eyes off the screen for even a moment (much the same effect that Metropolis has). Others have remarked on the undercurrent of homoerotica. I guess we find what we're looking for. The lens I viewed this film through saw two men who shared a very deep and life-long affection for and loyalty to one another. They displayed this affection openly, viscerally and verbally (through the dialogue intertitles). As a lifelong heterosexual male I have to say that these qualities in some of my male friendships over the years never resulted in me or my pals confusing one another with Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy. Acapulco Gold does not always lead to being a smack addict. So... I accepted this film for what it (in my opinion) is: a really fine film that I was thrilled to discover in the Garbo box set I just bought. So what if this wasn't the first (or last) time in the history of humankind that this theme was worked. Originality can be an overworked and highly overrated quality. For anyone interested in watching a superior film that is now 89 years old, Flesh and The Devil should satisfy. And so say all of us.

I still remember one scene from my college days of Gilbert coming back and discovering his best friend (homosexual lover?) has married Garbo. Gilbert's face is first transformed by joy, passion, then surprise, shock, contempt, concern for his unstable and naive friend, and finally cold irony --- all in the space of less than two minutes and this is not over acting !!!! But rather the best film acting. Twenty years later I watched this film again and am impressed anew how good Gilbert is.Garbo's mystique aside, Gilbert delivers a great acting performance here. Didn't anyone notice this scene? Tell me one modern actor who could have done this scene? Gilbert's work is I think underrated because of Garbo's later reputation and his tragic destruction courtesy of Mayer. But his acting in films from early Fox to later MGM films all show he took acting seriously, took his characters seriously, hated his 'great lover' title, and wanted to be a good actor. And I think he was a good actor too. He usually underacted. He was not a 'ham'. People should watch him work here instead of just looking at Garbo or writing him off as a 'pretty face'.In Dark Star (bio by his daughter) we are told Noel Coward made a homosexual pass at Gilbert and Gilbert just laughed and give him a whiskey. I can't believe Gilbert was stupid, being a writer himself, not to read between the lines and understand the implied homosexual undercurrent. The other male actor was clearly playing Urich as homosexual. So I think we can assume the 3 leads understood the implied theme and had fun with it. This is Pre Code before Pre Code.

This is a maudlin, fantastic, out-of-date moral grotesquerie that seems bizarre and easy to ridicule today. The setting of castles and islands, the duels, the character motivations, Lars Hansen's bulging eyeballs, the "situation," all suggest a bad dream put on film. But I liked it. After the second viewing, I liked it a lot. It's so bad, it's good. I even liked and felt sympathy for John Gilbert, who plays a guy who really gets blanked over. The plot, once freed from the beginning nonsense, is well integrated, it moves well, and only the ending (both of them) truly revolts. It is enhanced, not hindered, by the lack of spoken dialogue, and the DVD has a wonderful score created, I believe, just for this edition. Above all, it has GARBO, just as sexy as can be.