The Voracious Cinephile Film Review: Flesh and the Devil (1926); Directed by Clarence Brown

Principal Cast

John Gilbert as Leo von Harden

Greta Garbo as Felicitas von Rhaden

Lars Hanson as Ulrich von Eltz

Barbara Kent as Hertha

Review

This was even better the second time. Greta Garbo plays Felicitas von Rhaden, a countess who basically interrupts the latent homosexual ersatz marriage between best friends Leo (John Gilbert) and Ulrich (Lars Hanson). They come so close to kissing so many times on screen that you’re practically clawing at the screen to make them take that leap. As I saw someone else on Letterboxd say in their review, only Greta Garbo could convince two gay men that they’re “temporarily heterosexual”. 

I mean, just read this pledge they make to each other on their secret island of friendship (which is an actual island) as children and tell me it doesn’t at least vaguely resemble wedding vows: 

“By this rite of blood we are united…in riches and in poverty…in love and in sorrow…in life and in death…..”

*plays Wedding March* 

Ulrich’s sister Hertha (Barbara Kent) is even standing between them while they make this blood oath as a sort of officiant. The DVD copy I borrowed from the library which included Flesh and the Devil as part of TCM Archives: The Garbo Silents Collection had an alternate ending which is way more heterosexual than the original one. It interrupts a gorgeous bucolic scene (post-original ending) of Leo and Ulrich enjoying an afternoon of blissful domesticity out on the lawn by having Hertha (Kent) declare she’s moving to Munich and Leo follows after her and they decide to get together. She had spent most of the film pining after him while he was having bisexual fits over Felicitas (Garbo) and Ulrich. 

What an unnecessary coda. If they had ended the alternate ending with Leo (Gilbert) and Ulrich (Hanson) simply enjoying each other’s company out on the lawn without having to inject it with forced heterosexuality it would have been so beautiful. Why can’t we have nice things? Talk about having a lifestyle shoved down your throat. 

P.S. I would love to know the specific dark lipstick they had on Ulrich for the majority of the film because I think it at least partially inspired Taylor Swift’s reputation album.