Flesh and the Devil
1926, NR, 112 min.
Directed by Clarence Brown, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Greta Garbo, Barbara Kent, Lars Hanson, John Gilbert, William Orlamond.

Greta Garbo is the siren whose insatiable sexuality threatens to tear apart blood brothers John Gilbert and Lars Hanson in this overheated and melodramatic masterpiece. Flesh and the Devil contains, among its three smoldering love scenes, the first-ever horizontal-position kiss in American film, between Garbo and her real-life lover Gilbert. It also made a household name out of Garbo, who plays the ultimate femme fatale: a sophisticated and deliciously sultry incarnation of feminine desire whose white-hot evil – in classic Hollywood style – can only be purged by her sacrifice in an icy lake.

This article appears in April 12 • 2002.

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