Flesh and the Devil (1926)

(On Cable TV, April 2019) As much as I love exploring what Classic Hollywood has to offer, it’s not because a film is old and still remembered that it’s good. While Flesh and the Devil is still noteworthy today for being one of Greta Garbo’s Hollywood breakout roles (and was selected for the National Film Registry), it remains a particularly melodramatic silent drama and those often age badly. The premise has to do with a love triangle between a woman and two friends, with plenty of complications. I didn’t like it all that much. Some of it has to do with the nature of silent dramas—the pacing is mortally slow, the overacting can get tiresome even by the standards of the day, and the underpinning of the drama is nothing like today. But some of it is specific to the choices made by Flesh and the Devil as well: the melodrama is overdone and Garbo’s character is portrayed as purely a temptress with little personality of her own. This dismissive portrait of the female lead, combined to a relationship between the two friends that would work better if they were brothers or even homosexual lovers, leads to an incredibly cruel bros-before-hoes climax that will leave modern viewers dumbfounded. I know, I know—cinema at that time was a heroic endeavor, and that it actually pulls off something that we can appreciate today is in itself a miracle. Still, well, blah.