Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Love (1927)

“Gilbert and Garbo in Love” proclaimed theater marques in December 1927, and the film’s original poster read, “John Gilbert in Love with Greta Garbo.” The off-screen romance of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo had begun when they appeared together in Flesh and the Devil (1927), and movie magazines of the day were full of the story. Not surprisingly, MGM chose to change the title of their loose adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to capitalize on the public’s fascination with the pair, and they would not go unrewarded: Love (1927) became MGM’s fourth highest-grossing film of the silent era.

Anna (Greta Garbo), the young wife of the influential Senator Karenin (Brandon Hurst) and mother to Serezha (Philippe de Lacy), meets Captain Count Alexei Vronsky (John Gilbert) when one of the horses pulling her sleigh is injured. Vronsky comes to her rescue and takes her to a nearby inn until the storm passes. He makes advances. She repulses him. They meet again at an Easter service at home in St. Petersburg. Vronsky begs for her forgiveness, and Anna agrees that they can be friends. The friendship turns into a passionate secret love affair. Secret that is until Vronsky has an accident during a horse race. Anna is so distraught that she exposes her feelings for Vronsky publicly, while sitting next to her husband no less. This is too much for Karenin and he casts Anna out of their house. Anna is now torn between her love for Vronsky and the love she has for her child.

Love was released in the USA with two endings, and whichever ending played in your town was up to the exhibitor. Tolstoy’s original tragic ending played mostly in urban centers, and a happy ending was generally seen everywhere else. Love is, if not a very accurate representation of Tolstoy’s novel then, a well-crafted cinematic melodrama featuring two of the most prominent and popular romantic icons of the period.

Greta Garbo had begun filming Anna Karenina on 18 April 1927 with director Dmitri Buchowetski, cinematographer Merritt Gerstad, and with Ricardo Cortez as Vronsky and Lionel Barrymore as Karenin. But, after several weeks of production, Garbo became ill, shooting was suspended, and that version of the picture was eventually scrapped.

Although the director of record of the released version of the film was Edmund Goulding, it has been reported by a number of sources that John Gilbert assumed direction of many of the scenes, especially the intimate scenes between himself and Garbo. Whoever directed what, the film is solidly assembled. Garbo’s favorite cinematographer William Daniels lit both Garbo and Gilbert to maximum effect and they both look simply stunning. The intertitle cards written by Marion Ainslee and Ruth Cummings are somewhat stilted, but convey the necessary information.

Greta Garbo was just shy of 22 years old when Love was filmed; Gilbert turned 30 during shooting. They are both at the height of their physical attractiveness, and their performances are natural and nuanced. Garbo acts perhaps a tad too theatrical in the racetrack scene, but the scenes with Philippe de Lacy as her son are especially charming and poignant.

— Karl Holzheimer