Love (1927 film)

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Love
Directed by Edmund Goulding
John Gilbert
Produced by Edmund Goulding
Written by Leo Tolstoy
Lorna Moon
Frances Marion
Marian Ainslee
Ruth Cummings
Starring John Gilbert
Greta Garbo
Music by Arnold Brostoff (1994)
Cinematography William H. Daniels
Editing by Hugh Wynn
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s) November 29, 1927
Running time 82 mins.
Country United States
Budget $488,000 (estimated)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Love (1927) is a film directed by Edmund Goulding and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM made the film in order to capitalize on its winning romantic team of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert who had starred in the 1926 blockbuster, Flesh and the Devil.

Taking full advantage of the star power, a drama was scripted based on Leo Tolstoy's timeless novel, Anna Karenina. The result was a failure for the author's purists, but it provided the public with a taste of Gilbert-Garbo eroticism that would never again be matched. The publicity campaign for the film was one of the largest up to that time, and the title was changed from the original, Heat.

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[edit] Synopsis

During a blizzard, Russian count Alexis Vronsky, aide-de-camp of the Grand Duke, meets a mysterious woman on the way to St. Petersburg, Russia. When they are forced to stop at an inn for the night, Vronsky attempts a seduction after she lifts her veil, revealing a beautiful face. She rejects him coldly.

Some time later, at a reception at his place for Senator Karenine, Vronsky is presented to the Senator's wife, Anna, the woman at the inn that cold night and he tries to ask forgiveness for his transgressions. This she finally grants but then he visits her in her home and kisses her passionately and she scolds him again ordering him to leave.

Anna has a young son, Sergei, with whom she has an almost incestious relationship which is thawed as a fiery passion develops between Anna and Vronsky. This is noted by the aristocracy of St. Petersburg, to the displeasure of her husband. After a house race, in which Anna makes a spectacle of herself and all but announces her love for Vronsky, she deserts her husband when he finds the two lovers in an hotel room. They go off to Italy together.

Anna cannot forget her son and suffers because she left him, Vronsky realizes this and even though he is jealous of her, returns to Russia with her. She plans to visit Sergei on his birthday, but Karenine prevents it, having told their son that his mother is dead. She overcomes her fear and goes to the house in any case but is found out by Karenine and ordered out of the house.

To make matters worse, the Grand Duke plans to have Vronsky removed from the army because he is cohabitating with Anna, who seeks to prevent him from losing his social position as she has lost hers. She goes to the Grand Duke and is able to reinstate Alexis, on the condition that she leave him, and St. Petersburg, forever.

[edit] Alternate ending (European version)

As a result of losing the right to visit her son and now having to leave Vronsky forever in order to save his reputation, she commits suicide and falls under a train.

[edit] Alternate ending (American version)

For three years the lovers do not see each other but Vronsky searches frantically for Anna. By chance, he reads in a newspaper an item on Anna's son, who is finishing at the Military Academy in St. Petersburg and will return for his visits.

On this occasion, he learns that Kareine is dead and that Anna visits her son daily. They met again when Sergei invites Vronsky to his home, and are reunited.

[edit] Trivia

There are two endings to the film: the original Tolstoy ending with Anna's suicide (which was shown in Europe) and an alternate happy ending (for American audiences) in which the lovers are reunited after Karenine's death.

It was originally planned to title the film Anna Karenina but it was later changed first to Heat and finally Love when a writer noted the connotation of Gilbert and Garbo in Heat.[citation needed]

Originally the film was to star Ricardo Cortez, Greta Garbo, and John Barrymore, but Garbo hated Cortez and was being upstaged by Barrymore, so she became ill and stopped showing up for work, it was also at this time that she was on strike for a higher pay check with the full support of John Gilbert. When she finally returned to the studio after six months she received her raise and Gilbert as leading man.[citation needed]

The version which airs on Turner Classic Movies from time to time runs 82 minutes and includes both endings.

In 1935, Garbo remade Anna Karenina, under the original title, directed by Clarence Brown, with Fredric March as Count Vronsky.

[edit] Cast

[edit] External links