Childhood friends Diana, Neville and David are caught in a love triangle as adults. Diana and Neville have long been smitten with each other, but her father disapproves of the relationship, resulting in her eventual marriage to David. It's not long after their wedding, however, that tragedy strikes, sending Diana on a downward spiral. When Neville reappears in her life, will he be able to save her from her own misery?
Il destino, Eine schamlose Frau, Женски афери, Mulher de Brio, Деловая женщина, La mujer ligera, Gröna hatten, 小霸王
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i've been reading a lot about stars of the silent era for class and today i came across this excellent quote from clarence brown about the experience of directing garbo and gilbert in this and flesh and the devil:
“It seemed like an intrusion to yell ‘cut!’ ... I used to just motion the crew over to another part of the set and let them finish what they were doing. It was embarrassing.”
anyway i'm obsessed with this pair, their chemistry is ridiculous.
Apparently tonight’s double feature was “Movies starring the most insanely attractive people to ever live with titles starting A Woman…”
While Flesh & the Devil will always be my favorite Garbo-Gilbert, I really forgot just how good this film is, even setting aside the scorching chemistry that just radiated from each of their four films together. The cinematography is next level, and the film moves so fast that it’s over in the blink of an eye, but you have felt its devastation and drama and yearning as deeply as if it lasted for years. Of course Garbo and Gilbert are spectacular, but Douglas Fairbanks Jr also really shines in an early substantive role. All around, this really blew me away upon my first rewatch in four years.
Killing it on these spur of the moment rewatches tonight… gosh, I love movies!
“Your ring is loose.”
Garbo winks! Paired with one of her best directors, Clarence Brown (Flesh and the Devil), in her last silent film with John Gilbert, we finally get something close to a modern Garbo. Albeit a British one? Rich, bored kids doing rich, bored kid things. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is a half-drunk, frenzied baby. Gilbert’s character is unfortunately named “Neville.” A Woman of Affairs is a neutered retelling of Michael Arlen’s “The Green Hat” with all the fun stuff removed (and in B&W, so nobody can actually tell that her hat is green). It’s one of those movies with handsome, monied people acting badly (but not too badly) and having very serious discussions in gigantic sitting rooms with…
A dirtier, more scandalous version of director Clarence Brown's previous film, Flesh and the Devil. John Gilbert and Greta Garbo once again anchor the cast with a doomed love affair, and there's a lot of the same story beats. Gilbert loves Garbo, Gilbert has to go away for an extended period of time, Garbo gets married to his friend, anguish ensues, onward to tragic ending where Garbo pays the price for everyone's sins. Applause, thanks Mr. Brown, onto the next one.
The used car plot notwithstanding, this is a much more satisfying film than Flesh and the Devil. The cast is more intriguing, full of Hollywood stories. Gilbert and Garbo's real-life romance gets top billing, but the backing roster is…
"David died for ---
decency."
Surely, that's such a 1928 thing to say. And boy, is this Melodrama. Of the good kind. The kind that sucks me into its vortex of emotions and doesn't let up.
I was expecting little of this collab between Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, because it's only literally been about a week since I slagged off Greta Garbo as garbage in her (considered stronger by letterboxd standards) silent Flesh and the Devil. Lo and behold, the woman can act. Somebody check the weather forecast, because hell has frozen over. Not only that but Garbo seems to have better chemistry with Gilbert here (or maybe that's because Gilbert has the strongest chemistry with her, Lars Hanson…
Greta Garbo was never more beautiful, radiant, or tragic. And there was never a better leading man for Garbo than John Gilbert.
1. Garbo is stunning, particularly in the early sections here.
1b. I feel like we don’t talk enough about how great her hair is?
1c. The shots of her in bed, waiting for David on their wedding night, are astonishing.
2. I was interested to read that the story (The Green Hat) was heavily censored as it made the transition from play to movie, a process which included removal of all mentions of drug use, VD, and homosexuality.
2b. If you tell me Jeffry and David weren’t fucking on the regular, I will call you a liar.
3. John Gilbert really needed more to do here, or at least to have more personality.
4. Team Constance 2021.
While quite good, I admit I'm a little bit disappointed in A Woman of Affairs. After Garbo and Gilbert, under the direction of Clarence Brown, absolutely floored me in Flesh and the Devil I had great hopes for this reunion. Unfortunately the material wasn't as well structured, the characters weren't as compelling and the use of visual symbolism couldn't fill in all the gaps. Still worth watching for the strong performances.
You could argue that A Woman of Affairs is the weakest Garbo-Gilbert pairing, but it fascinates me. Subversive Hays Code symbolism in page-to-screen adaptations is my cinematic kryptonite.
A couple of years ago, the Indiana University Press published an article by Carmen Guiralt that explains how, in navigating the censors, Clarence Brown produced two separate storylines in A Woman of Affairs. Basically, if you cut out the intertitles and read only Brown’s visual symbolism (communicated most often through extreme closeups), you end up with a much more scandalous version of the story that better matches its source material, Michael Arlen’s The Green Hat. Addiction, homosexuality, venereal disease, nymphomania, extramarital sex, and illegitimate babies are very much still present in the…
