"The Kiss" *** (out of ****)One of my biggest regrets, so far, with this blog is I have not reviewed enough silent movies. It's not that I don't enjoy watching silent movies, I do, very much so. But I'm always pushing them aside.
When I was in college, as a film major, I never met another student who enjoyed silent films. Not once. During four years of school and meeting countless other film students, I never had a conversation about silent films and/or silent film stars. None of the students watched them and had no interest to start.
I was of a different breed. I grew up watching silent films. I especially loved slapstick comedy. I couldn't get enough of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. The more serious films were OK to watch, I wouldn't appreciate those until I got older, at least in my double digits.
Of all the great silent stars I believe one name stands head and shoulders above the rest. The great Garbo. She has become such an iconic figure, so important to the history of cinema, that one doesn't even have to mention her first name. If you are really clueless as to who I am talking about, first of all this blog probably isn't for you and secondly, her name is Greta Garbo.
Just saying her name invokes images of a mysterious, seductive lady, who famously wanted to be "left alone".
I can't say Garbo was my favorite actress (that might be Grace Kelly) but there is no way to get around her talent and place in history. She is a legend, who hopefully will never be forgotten. I find it sad to think so many young, so-called "film lovers" will never see a Garbo picture. They will never experience what intrigued audiences during the 1920s.
Garbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden, where she appeared in her first films. She wouldn't make her American film debut until 1926 with the film "Torrent" with Richard Cortez. That would lead to other films which had titles such as "The Temptress", directed by her favorite director Clarence Brown, and "The Mysterious Lady".
She held out longer than most of her acting contemporaries in resisting talking pictures. "The Kiss", released in 1929, would mark her end in silent films.
The movie was directed by Jacques Feyder, who directed the German version of Garbo's first talking picture, "Anna Christie" (Clarence Brown would direct the English language version). For me, "The Kiss" is not one of Garbo's great films and she doesn't deliver her best performance. For that watch her in "Christie" or "Grand Hotel", "Camille" or Ernst Lubitsch's "Ninotchka".
In this film however she plays Irene Guarry, an unhappily married woman who has been having an affair with Andre Dubail (Conrad Nagel). Andre wants Irene to confront her husband and tell him she wants a divorce. And even though she claims not to love her husband, she refuses to confess to him. She says she knows her husband, Charles (Anders Randolf), will not grant her a divorce. She worries Charles may become so jealous that he may kill Andre. Out of love she tells him they can never see each other again and he must go away.
Charles has not been behaving normally lately. We later find out he has taken a hit from the stock market (remember this film was made in 1929). He is on the verge of bankruptcy and asks a friend, Lassalle (Holms Herbert) for a loan. What Charles doesn't know is Lassalle's son, Pierre (Lew Ayres, in one of his first roles) is in love with Irene.
Pierre is a young college student who lets his affections known to Irene, who leads him on by playfully flirting with him, though she seems to have no real interest in him, other than not wanting to hurt his feelings by rejecting him. Before heading back to start leaving for school, Pierre asks Irene if she would give him a picture to keep, she agrees and tells him to meet her at her home later that night.
Not wanting to reveal too much of the plot, Charles finds Irene and Pierre kissing (hence the film's title) and becomes enraged with jealousy. Cleverly, off-screen, Charles is found dead. But who killed him? Pierre or Irene? Or was it suicide, as Irene proclaims?
"The Kiss" now turns into a courtroom drama as Andre comes back from his trip aboard to defend Irene in court.
There is one extremely interesting scene in the movie when the police question Irene on her whereabouts the night of the murder. It is clear she has something to hide and starts to ad-lib on the spot. The sequence shows Irene's thoughts as we follow her on the night of Charles' death. But because this is a silent film, there is no voice-over. To get pass this problem the film uses some clever devices. For instance, Irene cannot make up her mind on whether or not her bedroom window was open or closed. At first she says it was open but then changes her mind and says it was closed. At that moment the windows close as Irene stands in the middle of the room. Or when she can't decide on what time she went to sleep we see the hands on a clock move forward and backwards by themself. It was an interesting way to get around the problem of no sound.
But as I say this is not one of Garbo's great films. Her performance is very good. I think she does a better job than Nagel, who was himself a great star of the silent era. The two appeared in "The Mysterious Lady" and Nagel was in "The Divorcee" with Norma Shearer. But I never became fully involved in the movie. It is hard to explain why. I have a hunch the film would have worked better as a talking picture. The plot seems almost too complex for no sound. But that's not the real reason I'm reluctent to call this a masterpiece.
The Garbo persona doesn't seem to be in full use here. There is a level of mystic missing in her performance. And though she does have a few flirty moments with Pierre, she is not much of a seductress here either.
I mentioned this was one of Lew Ayres first roles. He possesses a natural screen presence, especially when you consider he is acting on-screen with a couple of heavyweights. His next project would be the Oscar winner, "All Quiet on the Western Front". He would have quiet a long career in films and judging by his performance here it is not difficult to see why.
"The Kiss" not only marked Garbo's last silent film appearance but was also MGM's last silent film. If you can find "The Kiss" on VHS (I'm not sure if it has been released on DVD) I would say check it out. Anything with Greta Garbo is worth watching.
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