Love (1927)

Love (later retitled Anna Karenina) is an important movie in Greta Garbo’s filmography. She got to make this movie despite Louis B. Mayer’s attempt to destroy her career. She foiled that attempt by going over Mayer’s head to the owners of MGM. Love established Garbo as a star with the clout to pick her own projects, at least to some extent.

This movie also saw her moving away from her early vamp roles. This is the Garbo who became a legend - playing heroines who sacrifice everything for love.

Up to a point it follows Tolstoy’s novel, in a very superficial way. It’s a very long novel turned into a rather short film. The movie turns a complex story into a straightforward story of star-crossed lovers.

The setting is St Petersburg. Anna Karenina (Garbo) is married to the rich powerful Senator Karenin. She meets a handsome young Guards officer, Vronsky (John Gilbert). They are both stranded in a storm. They have to stay overnight in an inn. Nothing happens between them, but everything happens between them. The romantic/sexual fuse has been lit. There’s nothing either of them can do about it.

The first scene between Garbo and Gilbert is very long and it’s crucial. It’s a complex scene with all sorts of romantic and sexual approaches and hesitations and rebuffs. It’s the beginning of the obsessive love that the movie is all about. It’s done without any title cards. Garbo and Gilbert don’t need any help from title cards. We get the message.

The affair becomes more tempestuous. The scandal grows.

Anna’s problem is that she has a son. She will have to choose between Vronsky and her son. It is an impossible choice. As she tells Vronsky, she loves them both infinitely. But she will have to choose.

And eventually Anna’s husband will force her hand.

The film was shot with two radically different endings. Tragically the Warner Archive DVD includes only one of the endings and it’s a contrived and totally unsatisfactory ending which makes nonsense of the whole movie. This was an alternative ending for the benefit of exhibitors too afraid to risk screening a movie with anything other than a conventional happy ending. It’s very very difficult to judge this movie without being able to see the original ending.

There are some nuances which a lot of viewers today might miss. Anna’s husband is not a mere monster. He is not entirely unreasonable. He lays his cards on the table for Anna. He will turn a blind eye to her affair with Vronsky as long as she is very discreet. He will not tolerate a public scandal, or being publicly humiliated. Which is reasonable enough. But he also warns her that there will be consequences if she is not discreet. The problem is that Anna and Vronsky are not discreet.

This is Garbo in magnificent form as a woman tortured by love. John Gilbert is excellent. It’s the extraordinary chemistry between Garbo and John Gilbert that makes the 1927 silent version worth seeing.

The tragedy is that the moment they meet Anna and Vronsky are no longer in control. They both know that their love will end in disaster. It’s not they they know this and go ahead anyway. They have no choice. This is a love that cannot be denied. They have poured the wine and they will have to drink it.

Garbo also starred in a later sound version (in 1935) and that version is superior to the silent version.

Without seeing that original ending I honestly cannot say how good this movie really is, but Love is worth seeing for Garbo and Gilbert.