The Temptress (1926)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Fred Niblo

Writers:

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (novel)
Dorothy Farnum (scenario)

Release Date:

3 October 1926 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

She had added another to her list of victims (from original lobby card)

Plot:

In a masked ball in Paris, Manuel Robledo, a young Argentinian architect, meets Elena, the Marquess of Torre Blanca...

Plot Keywords:

Love | Whip Duel | Murder | Dam | Paris

Cast

Greta Garbo	...	Elena
Antonio Moreno	...	Manuel Robledo
Marc McDermott	...	M.Fontenoy (as Marc MacDermott)
Lionel Barrymore	...	Canterac
Armand Kaliz	...	Marquis de Torre Bianca
Roy D'Arcy	...	Manos Duras
Robert Anderson	...	Pirovani (as Robert Andersen)
Francis McDonald	...	Timoteo
Hector Sarno	...	Rojas (as Hector V. Sarno)
Virginia Brown Faire	...	Celinda

Runtime:

117 min (18.7 fps) | 106 min (2005 alternate version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating)

Company:

Cosmopolitan Productions

Trivia:

Mauritz Stiller was fired after 10 days of production and replaced with Fred Niblo.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When the camera crane pulls back from Fontenoy along the long banquet table prior to his suicide, the crane throws a shadow across him from the overhead studio lighting.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Settling the Score (2005) (TV)

Interesting Role For Garbo, Plus Some Good Set Pieces

This silent drama provides an interesting role for Greta Garbo, who was still rather young at the time. It also has some good set pieces created by directors Fred Niblo and/or Mauritz Stiller, which liven up the story considerably. The supporting cast also features a couple of good performances, and all of the strengths help to make up for a rather downbeat story.

As "The Temptress", Garbo is certainly believable as a woman who attracts the attention of every man around. What makes it more interesting than most such scenarios is that both the script and Garbo's performance leave some ambiguity about what the character is really like inside, and in any case she has a lot more depth than the male characters. The best supporting performances come from Lionel Barrymore and Marc McDermott, as two of the many men who desire her.

Several sequences are filmed very nicely. Fontenoy's dinner party is an effective display of the hollow lifestyle it depicts, and there is some real danger and menace in the fight scene between Robledo and Manos Duras. The pace overall is uneven, and it does have some slow stretches that add unnecessarily to the running time, but the good parts make up for this. At least one DVD version includes a variant ending that changes the tone considerably, so there must have been some uncertainty about how it should close.

Garbo's talent and screen presence are both easy to see, and in later features her characters would give her better opportunities to show them. She does a very good job here, and makes her character much more interesting than it would have been with a lesser performer in the role. Overall, it's a movie worth seeing for silent film fans, with some real highlights that make up for the occasional shortcomings.