It is important to recognize that this film, "The Temptress", is almost 80 years old. The entertainment sensibilities were different then. This movie is silent, and large, white subtitles are superimposed, telling us a snippet of what is being said. But the actors are also very animated in their delivery of lines, and watching their body language is also important. Most of the lines would be considered "cheesy" by today's standards.
This was Greta Garbo's 8th movie. Filmed when she was only 20, her character is Elena, and whom we figure out quickly is the Temptress of the title. In Paris she meets Robledo (Antonio Moreno, 38), an Argentine engineer, they dance, and he is smitten. He tells her she is the woman he has waited all his life for. She tells him that she "has no other man." What she fails to mention is that she is married and has a rich lover (Fontenoy) already on the side. Her husband puts up with it, because of the expensive jewels she gets.
Robledo finds out about the husband the next day when he calls on him, strictly a change encounter. That evening, at a big dinner party, wealthy Fontenoy exposes his affair with Elena, tells everyone he is going broke, and kills himself with poison in his drink. Elena and her husband become news. Robledo cannot understand how she could profess to love him, when she already had a husband and a lover. He travels back to the Argentine to build a dam.
Disgraced in Paris, Elena and her husband travel also to the Argentine, a pretty big country, but happen to pull up right into the small village Robledo was in. A thug, Manos Duras, gives them trouble, there is a fight, Robledo prevails, injured. The two men and Elena seek to live in harmony in the Argentine.
An interesting movie for Greta Garbo. I had only seen her as a more mature woman, and didn't really understand why she was considered one of the great beauties in the history of film. Now I know. As a 20 year old, she was simply spectacular. That comes across even in this old, black and white film shown on the TCM network. The story itself is overly melodramatic, but that was what was required for the period it was made for.
This was Greta Garbo's 8th movie. Filmed when she was only 20, her character is Elena, and whom we figure out quickly is the Temptress of the title. In Paris she meets Robledo (Antonio Moreno, 38), an Argentine engineer, they dance, and he is smitten. He tells her she is the woman he has waited all his life for. She tells him that she "has no other man." What she fails to mention is that she is married and has a rich lover (Fontenoy) already on the side. Her husband puts up with it, because of the expensive jewels she gets.
Robledo finds out about the husband the next day when he calls on him, strictly a change encounter. That evening, at a big dinner party, wealthy Fontenoy exposes his affair with Elena, tells everyone he is going broke, and kills himself with poison in his drink. Elena and her husband become news. Robledo cannot understand how she could profess to love him, when she already had a husband and a lover. He travels back to the Argentine to build a dam.
Disgraced in Paris, Elena and her husband travel also to the Argentine, a pretty big country, but happen to pull up right into the small village Robledo was in. A thug, Manos Duras, gives them trouble, there is a fight, Robledo prevails, injured. The two men and Elena seek to live in harmony in the Argentine.
An interesting movie for Greta Garbo. I had only seen her as a more mature woman, and didn't really understand why she was considered one of the great beauties in the history of film. Now I know. As a 20 year old, she was simply spectacular. That comes across even in this old, black and white film shown on the TCM network. The story itself is overly melodramatic, but that was what was required for the period it was made for.