Silent Film Sources - Reviews

Story by John Colton. Continuity by Hans Kraly and Richard Schayer.  

Adaptation by Willis Goldbeck.  

Titles by Marian Ainslee and Ruth Cummings. Art Director Cedric Gibbons. Gowns by Adrian. Photographed by William Daniels. Film Editor C.A. Nervig.  

Directed by Sidney Franklin.  

Cast: Greta Garbo, Lewis Stone, Nils Asther. 

There are only three names in the cast listing: Garbo, her rich and noticeably older husband played by Lewis Stone, and the hot young Nils Asther- the same situation in many Garbo films. The couple meet Asther on shipboard en route to Java, and Asther cultivates a friendship with Stone to get close to Garbo. 

One of the surprises in the narrative is that Garbo is a devoted wife, not the femme fatale. So she is not the protagonist in this triangle drama. Instead of Garbo leading her lover into a dangerous situation, Asther draws her in. Asther starts by telling Garbo she won't be able to resist him; she isn't playing hard to get, she isn't interested. The fun of the film is watching Asther's prediction come true as Garbo falls under his spell and her actions of indifference motivate Asther all the more. 

Garbo can see temptation on the horizon when Asther invites Stone (and spouse) to stay at his plantation in Java. Asther's Java plantation house is the set decorator's indulgence, and is a visual treat. It is an indication of director Sidney Franklin's leisurely story telling style that the film actually seems to pick up during three numbers performed by native Javanese dancers. Franklin had been the house director for Norma Talmadge, but while this film has equally high production values, it has none of the pretensions that slowed the pace of the Talmadge films. He is expert at telling the story with few titles, as it doesn't matter what the characters say, but how they behave. But Franklin doesn't have a strong visual style to reinforce the story he is telling. 

Garbo is gorgeous and plays her thinly written role with a full dramatic range, but the narrative plays like a Somerset Maugham short story. This is not surprising since the author of the original story had adapted Maugham's "Rain" for the stage. The climax of the picture is a tiger hunt where Asther hopes to finish off his rival. Here the movie has it both ways- leaving it to the audience to decide if Garbo did have an affair with Asther or was merely tempted. 

This restored version on the Image Entertainment laserdisc box set The Garbo Silents is sharp and clean, and is one of the better surviving MGM silents for visual quality, with only little bits of nitrate decomposition in the original. All of the titles are replaced with facsimiles of the originals. The film features an uncredited Movietone orchestral score that gives strong . support to the film, adding shading to the characters' emotions when they are not evident on the screen. The score fits the action and uses authentic-sounding exotic music appropriate for the Javanese setting. The title song is quietly sung during one love scene, and is used throughout the underscore. There are sound effects when appropriate, often heard before the corresponding image. We hear a gate close on the soundtrack before the obligatory insert shot, in a sequence where Lewis Stone returns to apparently catch Garbo and Asther in an embrace. (Review © 1998 David Pierce)