Motion Picture News during 1929 quietly reported, "Clarence Brown will direct Greta Garbo in Heat for M. G.M.", later that month it adding, "Greta Garbo...has just completed The Divine Woman and will soon begin working on a new starring vehicle tentatively titled Heat adapted from an original story by John Colton. Richard Corliss has written, "Wild Orchids is a gorgeous excersize, with soft-focus sunstars glistening off the the actors' silhouettes, and countless tracking shots that give the impression of being an elegant if impotent nose-thumb in the face of the more earthbound talkies...and Wild Orchids is full of the frolicsome play of shadows. As Garbo stands indecisively outside Asther's bedroom door, light suddenly spills over her as the door is opened and his shadow crawls up her body; when he reaches her- and reaches for her, the shadow of his cupped hand falling over her breast- she retreats." Picture Play Magazine reviewed the film with, "Greta Garbo in her best role. Rather slow, but impelled by adult emotions." It later intimated that Greta Garbo was being watched, from no matter how far. In "You'd Never Know Them", A.L. Woodbridge claimed, "Greta Garbo is one of the few stars who looks so different in person, she needs no 'prop' disguise." Photoplay Magazine published, "Wild Orchids will do much for Nils Asther. Here is the role that will push the young Swedish actor up closer to stardom." It described the film with, "a story that proves tropical heat melts all conventions. The scene is java- the details are superb and the picture is a riot for audiences." Film Daily began following the film with the entry Asther Being Groomed, which read, "It looks as if Metro-Goldwyn Mayer are grooming Nils Asther to fill the vacancy that might be created by the departure of John Gilbert from the payroll of that organization. Rumor has it that Gilbert will go to United Artists..,Asther has been assigned the lead opposite Greta Garbo in her next picture Heat." A later entry followed reporting Garbo Title Change Again, "Wild Orchids and not Kiss of The East will be final title for Greta Garbo's new picture." It is not entirely marginal that there are accounts that Nils Asther had met Greta Garbo in 1924, at the Dramatiska Teatern and that he had proposed marriage to her, which she apparently declined- the autobiography of Nils Asther, Narrens jag (Fool's Way/The Way of the Jester was published in Swedish posthumously. If, in 1928, Ruth Bieiry was writing about Nils Asther in Photoplay magazine merely to obtain information about the secretive Greta Garbo, she does in fact show him in a favorable light and was genuinely interested in the actor, "Nils Asther, like Greta Garbo, was trained in the small studios of Sweden. He was accustomed to accept acting as an art rather than a short cut to wealth, fortune or position." 

   Rilla Page Palborg, in a biography titled "The Private Life of Greta Garbo" gave an account of meeting Greta Garbo on the set of "Wild Orchids". It soon become apparent that Greta Garbo would only film on a closed set, beyond anyone questioning whose voice distinctive voice accompanied the images. "A few days before she was to leave for Stockholm I talked to Greta Garbo. Our appointment on the set of 'Wild Orchids', then in process of production. She was acting a scene with Lewis Stone, who in the picture was her husband...Stealthily, she slipped out of bed, wrapped in a robe about her slender body, and stole from the room. The scene was taken over and over. Finally she came out and sat down beside me on an old couch that was standing on the edge of the set. 'I guess we can have a few minutes before I continue my struggle on that bed', she said wearily. 'It's almost impossible for me to keep my mind on all this. I did not want to make this picture before I went to Sweden. There is not enough enough time. My mind is running about the shops buying clothes and presents for this one and that one. But the studio made me do it.' " Greta Garbo continued the interview after decling anything for warmth, her denying that the she was cold in the M.G.M studio. "Now that I am really going home I can hardly wait to get there. I will be home for Christmas." Garbo apparently made her first reference to filming in sound in the United States, asking the journalist Palmborg if her accent was acceptable with a hopeful enthusiasm. Palmborg noted earlier that several actors had returned to Europe for just that reason, a heavy accent no matter how bilingual. Plamborg continued, "We talked about Lars Hanson and his wife, who had returned to Sweden. Her face saddened when I mentioned I mentioned her sister, who had died a year after Greta's arrival inHollywood. 'It has been hard to believe that she is really gone. When I go home I will find that it's is true."

     Clarence Sinclair Bull photographed the portrait of Nils Asther that appeared in Motion Picture Magazine. After their review of Wild Orchids there was included a page entitled Home is Where the Arts Is. It read, "It is Nils Asther's conviction that inspiration for his work is not so much to be got from constant mingling with other people as from a communion with himself." 

     Film Daily subtitled its review to the film, "Sexy Garbo Film with Strong Feminine Appeal. Finely Done. should Get Dough." It described the film's actors, " Greta Garbo; alluring and capable; Lewis Stone gives a fine performance and Nils Asther's a handsome Shiek. The three practically carry all the action." It went on to the scenario, Exploitation of Garbo's sex appeal." while crediting John Colton as author and Marion Ainslee and Rith Cummings as having written the titles. Photplay also announced, "This is Greta Garbo's last picture before she departed for Sweden" It claimed that the story created by writer John Colton as enacted by Garbo in Wild Orchids had previously been considered for Lillian Gish. motion Picture Magazpine listed the film as Synchronized (Sound) upon its release while lending it. Recommendation, "Lewis Stone gives his always distinguished performance. And Nils is an actor, and- but see Wild Orchids. To end 1928, Film Daily reported, Garbo Re-Signed, claiming that she had signed a new contract with M.G.M, one that would allow her to go on. vacation before going into effect and speculated with a fair amount of certainty that her first picture on her return would be an adaptation of a novel written by Elinor Glyn. John Bainbridge writes,"When she finished her current film, though, she was coming home for Christmas. Stiller, excited by this piece of news..." He provides an account of Garbo recieving a telegram from Victor Sjostrom, who had been with Mauritz Stiller the previous evening, announcing Stiller having passed away, an unnamed source describing that while on the set, her composure registered and became quiet for a brief moment and that she then continued the scene. "Lars Hanson, who spent untold hours with them in Sweden and in Hollywood, is of the opinion that there existed between them a bond of mutual affection, respect and dependency, but never the normal ties of love."
     Among the several advertisements published by M.G.M Studios which advertised the studio and included the film was on placed in Motion Picture News that reintroduced Greta Garbo. "The most talked about star in pictures! 'Woman in Affairs' built her fame bigger than ever. Next 'Wild Orchids' and it's a throbbing gold-getter." Typical of the studio advertising itself, John Gilbert, Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and Roman Novorro were included in the multi-page ads, "John Gilbert follows with 'Desert Night'. What a star! They all wanted him! The Big Ones stay with M.G.M."
Well into 1932, as was typical with the fan magazines of the early sound period, Movie Classic provided one of the many published retrospectives, biographies or timelines of the career of Greta Garbo and her silent film, building up the glamour aspect of her having been the enigmatic Swedish Sphinx, which included a look at The Mysterious Lady, "still another leading man, Conrad Nagel. Being married, he is safe from Greta Garbo." The magazine overlooked the marriage of Lars Hanson to Karin Molander paragraphs earlier, "(Garbo) hailed in the title role of The Divine Woman with Lars Hanson as leading man. Romance with Lars Hanson rumored." If actress Greta Garbo remained eternally silent on the rumor of an affair with Hanson, it would not have seemed out of place, as by the time it had gone to print, Lars Hanson and Victor Sjostrom had both returned to their native country Sweden with their wives. Journalist Harriet Parsons of Modern Screen Magazine looked at the availability of Greta Garbo during 1931. "After her split with Gilbert, Garbo used to see Nils occasionally. They were countrymen and shared in common a moodiness and a love of solitude...There was never more than a casual friendship between them...Nils has since married the woman he loves." While describing the personal life between Greta Garbo and Niks Asther, Parson introduced Sorenson, a blond young Swede that was dating Garbo while in the United States, and "was in love with Garbo. But Garbo wasn't in love with him." She "liked him immensely. Liked not loved." Sorenson returned to Sweden when his pass port had expired.

     As Film Daily scurried for the latest information on the three tone technicolor process and the wiring of movie theaters for sound, Movie Makers making reviewed the cinematography of "Wild Orchids", "The picture opens with a skillful cinematic representation of the confusion and excitement at the departure of a steamer...scenes of the dock and boat dissolve into each other and a moving camera follows the leads...the emphasis on neutral colors helps convey...although there are very few shots with definite photographic contrasts."

It would appear that during 1929 Greta Garbo was included into what could be considered either the hard cover or the textbooks of that year, but only due to an author writing in a flurry; Hands of Hollywood was printed by Mary Eunice McCarthy and the Photoplay Research Bureau with the subtitle Copyright Applied For as the world waited for Greta Garbo and Lon Chaney to speak. After a brief chapter on The Talers, it discussed The Future of Pictures by paraphrasing the view of Irving  Thalberg, "He also announces that Greta Garbo and Nils Asther, both possessing decided foreign accents, have been resigned by his company under long term contracts. he says that a producer is foolish to release great public favorites in which he has invested millions of dollars for advertising and exploitation and to replace them with comparatively unknown stage players merely because of their trained voice...Greta Garbo's latest picture, "Wild Orchids" (silent) is making a tremendous amount of money and has played Broadway for two splendid weeks." Earlier in the volume, in a section that covered Continuity Writers the author had mentioned the film in regard to the qualifications and duties of writers of adaptations and the knowledge of censorship and their translating to the screen novels or plays that otherwise would be censored, A Woman of Affairs having been milder than its counterpart The Green Hat.
M.G.M placed advertisements in magazines for theater owners assuring them that projecting the film would be profitable, describing it as a "throbbing gold-getter".

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back to top- Greta Garbo in Wild Orchids

Garbo photographer William Daniels in 1926, in addition to lighting Garbo and Gilbert was also cinematographer to the films Altars of Desire (seven reels)) under Christy Cabanne and Bardley the Magnificient under the direction of King Vidor; that is not to say that that is the limit of his contribution to film history; Daniel's had trained on several of Von Strohiem's important films, beginning with Blind Husbands in 1919 and continued in Hollywood after the making of the 1939 film Ninotchka, until 1970. Daniels has been deemed an "inventor of detail" for his ingenuity by American Cinematographer magazine and it was noted that during the silent era he would light the scene with a stand-in and use a bicycle horn when finished and ready to replace the figure with the film's star. Although Daniels seems uncredited for his photography on Von Strohiem's "The Merry Widow", starring John Gilbert and Mae Murray, he is noted for work on the 1925 film "Woman and Gold" (James  P. Hogan) for Gotham Productions,  film which starred actress Sylvia Breamer.  Film historian Leo Braudy has written, "The lighting that William Daniels created for Garbo's early silent film rendered her more erotic than any spoken dialogue."
Hollywood magazine during 1935 printed the article,"Garbo's cameraman Talks At Last", in which William Daniels primarily, for whatever reason, dispelled some of the more than prevalent publicity about Greta Garbo having been " gloomy, aloof, frightened or imperious" It claimed that he had originally become Garbo's cameraman when the studio ace that had been assigned to the film "The Torrent" had on the third day encountered an accident and needed a crushed finger amputated and with the studio busy, only young William Daniels was available to film Garbo. In light of what Daniels said during the filming of Anna Karenina, it would stand to reason that where Greta Garbo was foreign, the studio might reassign the same film crew in her pictures that were to follow. Daniels is quoted as having said, "She's changed. Developed. Matured. Ten years ago, she was a young girl undergoing the bewildering experience of finding herself suddenly famous in a land whose language she couldn't understand. She kept her head then, as she has ever since. Don't imagine she has had an easy time. For instance, look at the way she has perfected her English. I don't think she has learned so much by study as actually making herself use the language...And Miss Garbo is fond of America. She loves the Californian sunlight, basking in it, walking in it, incessantly."
There is an account of Rowland V. Lee having met Greta Garbo when she had first been introduced to the United States in 1925, "Jack Gilbert was all she wanted to talk about."
Greta Garbo and John Gilbert were to attend the premiere of Bardley the Magnificient" (Vidor/Daniels,1926) together. Motion Picture magazine printed, "Hollywood is still talking. The newspaper wires still buzz everytime ther telephones the other. Yet in spite of this, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert dare appear at openings and other Hollywood functions."  During this screen writer Dorothy Farnum ran magazine advertisements announcing her having written the screenplay to the film "Bardley the Magnificient" and the portrait from the film of John Gilbert printed in Motion Picture magazine had been taken by Ruth Harriet Louise. 1926 was also the year that Greta Garbo, John Gilbert and Lars Hanson would film an adaptation of the novel The Undying Past, bringing its plotline to the screen untill its emotional concluding scene at the Isle of Friendship during "Flesh and the Devil"
Picture Play magazine during 1927 published what seems to be a seldom seem photograph of Greta Garbo and Jack Gilbert, their staring at each other across a table. In When Hollywood Discovered Bridge, the caption below the four playing cards read, "The Flesh and the Devil quartet- Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson, Jack Gilbert and Director Clarence Brown- more than once took time off during the production to play a hurried rubber. as may be seen, though, Greta and Jack, who are usually partners didn't give their full attention to the game." As posed, they are looking at each other with a sense of either impending doom, or a mutual consent that would soon decide to spring into action, as though the photograph were staged.
Clarence Sinclair Bull published a portrait of Lars Hanson in Picture Play magazine during 1927. it's caption read, "That slow intent gaze which was so powerful a factor in making Hanson's Reverend Dimmesdale in 'The Scarlet Letter' a convincing portrayal is here pictured with equally telling effect. Hanson will next be seen in 'The Flesh and the Devil'.

Biographer John Bainbridge quotes Clarence Brown as though Brown had contributed to the mythical quality of any romance between Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, adding celluloid, or perhaps, tinsel rather, to the publicity it had already acquired, " 'I am working with raw material,' Brown said rather breathlessly. 'They are working in that blissful state of love that is so like a rosy cloud that they imagine themselves hidden behind it, as well as lost in it.'"
For Photoplay Agnes Smith in 1927 wrote the intrigue between John Gilbert and Greta Garbo, "He worked with her in a picture called Flesh and the Devil. He proclaimed his intention of marrying her. As for Greta she seemed to enjoy the rush. And then, when everyone was all set for another Hollywood wedding, Greta walked out...John Gilbert sticks to his story...She is a wonderful woman. A delightful woman And the most fascinating woman in pictures. 'She is,' says Mr. Gilbert, 'a mountian of a girl. She is a statue. There is something eternal about her. Not only did she baffle me, but she baffled everyone at the studio.'"
Rilla Page Palmberg, in her biography The Private Life of Greta Garbo quoted Clarence Brown on the passionate loves scenes in "Flesh and the Devil" that "plunged" Greta Garbo and John Gilbert into each others arms and intimate embrace, implying that they fell in love on the set as a result of the script of the film. " 'I am working with raw material. They are in that blissful state of love that is like a rosy cloud that they imagine themselves hidden behind it, as well as lost in it.'....Instead of hurrying home from her work at the studio, seeing only Mr. Stiller, she now began to go out with Jack."
Of her off-screen Clarence Brown romance with John Gilbert, Clarence Brown has been quoted as having said, "After i finsihed a scene with them, I felt like an intruder. I'd walk away to let them finish what they were doing." Brown has also been quoted as having said, "Those two were in a world of their own." Bainbridge quotes the director with, "Clarence Brown introduced them on the set of 'Flesh and the Devil', 'It was love at first sight,'and it lasted through many years.'" As a biographer, Bainbridge estimates the facets involved in the relationship, "her response to Gilbert's gaily insistent attention was quick, though it was not her nature that it should have been precipitous...Because of their work, Garbo and Gilbert spent all of their days together, and Gilbert took advantage of every oppurtunity to press his cause...Off the set, Gilbert and Garbo were also getting better acquainted. They often dined together, and the young actress became a rather frequent visitor a Gilbert's Tower Road mansion." This estimation reveals Gilbert's advance, "When 'Flesh and the Devil' was finished, Gilbert asked Garbo to marry him- a proposal that he was to make more than once again." The account in Photoplay written by Agnes Smith is very much like John Bainbridge's, "A great many stories have been broadcast concerning the romance of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. The scenario, according to Hollywood's most reliable gossips runs something like this. John met the beautiful Scandinavian and immediately started an impetuous courtship. He made no secret of his devotion to the lovely Greta. He accompanied her to all the parties. He lunched with her and dined with her." When "Flesh and the Devil" was reviewed by Photoplay Magazine, it was seen as "a picture filmed when the romance of Jack Gilbert and Greta Garbo (see Jack's story in this issue) was at its height." It saw the performance of Greta Garbo as "flashing" whereas that of John Gilbert was delivered by one who "does overshadow his scenes".
Picture Play Magazine in the beginning of 1927 playfully alluded to the meteoric notoriety of Greta Garbo by reintroducing her to magazine audiences as the mystery new to stardom, but elusive by virtue of her celebrity with a portrait taken by Ruth Harriet Louise; its caption read, "That sad, sad look on Greta Garbo's face is deceiving. She's really very happy over here in America and they say that she loved working with John Gilbert in 'Flesh and the Devil'."

Journalist I.W Irving, during 1926, expalined the film and the act of audience reception in the periodical Hollywood Topics, "As for John Gilbert, well...its one of the best things her ever did. The flapper will simply rave ober him. His love scenes with Greta Garbo will go in motion picture history as a momentous inspiration. And Greta Garbo...she's simply bewitching. The male element will undoubtedly rave over her. So will the female element, for they themselves will learn a few things in the art of love making...But it is Gilbert and Garbo in their great scenes that put the picture over as a directorial triumph."
During the middle of 1927 Photoplay featured the two pictured together in the News and Gossip of the Studios section, "All bets are off on the Garbo-Gilbert wedding. For at least five days Hollywood was in a flurry of excitement. Jack and Greta, fairest of Fjordland, were rumored to have trekked to a neighboring hamlet and murmurred, "I do." A search of marriage license permits revealed nothing. There is bleak silence from the two." Bainbridge adds, "'Gilbert pleaded and begged that they should marry, but Garbo just did not want to,' the director Clarence Brown said recently." Picture Picture magazine during 1927 queries Is the Gilbert-Garbo Match Really Off? Prompted by journalist Dorothy Herzog. The accompanying portrait of Jack Gilbert was photographed by Ruth Harriet Louise with the caption, "There can be no doubt that Jack Gilbert is saddened by the unhappy turn taken by what promised to be his great romance". She began, "She is a thousand years old. She came into the world with all it's knowledge. She knows everything, and instinctively remembers everything.' 'and you love Greta Garbo?', we interrupted. Jack Gilbert's shadowed eyes swept our face swiftly, then looked away. 'She is. Wonderful girl. We were merely good pals,' he evaded, alertly on the defensive. 'is it true you were engaged to her?' 'We were never engaged.' ------ Back to Greta Garbo John Gilbert M.G.M.advertised Greta Garbo in 1927, it often taking full page magazine pages that mentioned several actors and actresses that were currently at the studio at any given time. Garbo had become, "The most sensational find in years, she clicked immediately in The Torrent, then in The Temptress and now Flesh and the Devil" Later it advertised, "Greta Garbo's amazing hold on the public cannot be duplicated anywhere in this industry. Flesh and the Devil is just a foretaste of the money she means for the theaters. " --------- Collen Moore must have read about or in fact contacted the Greta Garbo apparition; during 1928 she compared herself to Greta Garbo by coming to her aid in Motion Picture Classic Magazine, "most of the greatly beloved women of history- they have been possessed of the childish appeal, every one of them. Perhaps not so much childish as wistful, whimsical. Seems a funny thing to say, but Greta Garbo has it too. Really, she romps and plays it less than that worn-out term, vamp, than anyone I know. In its way, it gets across." In an interview during which she outlines her having met John Gilbert, Greta Garbo as quoted by Ruth Biery in The Story of Greta Garbo, said, "When I finisihed The Temptress, they gave me the script for "The Flesh and the Devil" to read. I did not like the story. I did not want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures." This is oddly echoed by National Board of Review Magazine, in which the conclusion was drawn that, "the leading contributor to the success of Flesh and the Devil is Greta Garbo" It provided a synopsis of the film that also lent a background to its addressing the desire of Greta Garbo to leave her earlier " ladies of vampire repute" characters and to be seen as a more serious dramatic, or perhaps romantic dramatic, actress. it primarily sees her as having been a then more believable character, " Miss Garbo in her later day personal ion shows a frail physique and a fragile ethereal air. She is infinitely more civilized and all the more suitable for not being so deliberate."
Scott Reisfeld, the great nephew of Greta Garbo, reiterates the sentiment that Greta Garbo was dissatified with her assignments and needed to play more demanding characters in her reluctance to star in the film "Women Love Diamonds" but he also questions the part played by Louis B. Mayer in generating the conception of Garbo being a recluse, to which she may have merely acquiesced, "But Mayer was persistent in his attempts to compel Garbo into submission. He intiated a smear campaign in the media to depict Garbo as a megalomaniac. A negative media campaign supported threats to deport her."
The portrait of Greta Garbo that year had been photographed by Ruth Harriet Louise, the caption reading, "We are feverishingly waiting her performance opposite John Gilbert in Flesh and the Devil." By then, it was increasingly unnecessary to introduce her as a rising star. The photograph of Greta Garbo Ruth Harriet Louise published in Photoplay carried a caption referring to her as "the object of John Gilbert's fervant wooing". In regard to the direction of Clarence Brown, Motion Picture new reviwed the film during 1927 with, "And Clarence Brown, who has advanced so rapidly the past year, has brought out every point to build a story which fascinates in its paly of caprice and feeling. It is touched with sex- but sex never becomes rampant. It always remains a film of visual excellence...Early scenes project the development of the affair. What follows are the dramatic complications which culminate in a happy ending- the only flaw in the picture." Under the magazine's section on Explotation Angles, it advised: "Play up Gilbert and Garbo. Use stills. Cash in on title. Play up director. Go the limit." When the film was reviewed by Motion Picture Magazine the film was praised with, "Here is one of the best pictures reflected upon the screen in many a moon, the perfection of which is only marred by the ending, which appears tacked on, as an afterthought...Greta is a beautiful nymphomaniac...You never feel the chaos she causes exaggerated. she's attractive enough to wreak has ok in a man's world." Paul Rotha reviewed a what he deemed to be "a film of more than passing cleverness" directed by Clarence Brown, "Flesh and the Devil had some pretensions to be called a good film. The theme was sheer, undiluted sex,and Brown used a series of close ups to get this across with considerable effect. Notable also was his use of Ngles, different indeed from customary German and American method and the happiness with which he settled his characters in their environment."Back to Greta Garbo John Gilbert Greta Garbo and Jack Gilbert in Love< Film Daily during 1926 sported two interesting entries. During September it wrote, "Marcel de Sarno, director, and Raymond Doyle, scenarist, returned to M.G.M. studios after a trip for research data for Ordeal, which de Sarno will direct with Greta Garbo and Lon Chaney. In November, Film Daily reported, "Clarence Brown, who has just completed the direction of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Flesh and the Devil is preparing to direct Lillian Gish's next production, "The Wind", screen adaptation by Frances Marion of Dorothy Scarborough's story. It seems either misprint or misquote that Exhibitor's Trade Review had earlier, during 1925, published, "Miss Alice Scully, a young scenario writer wrote the script for Stella Maris...since the first of the year has also written scripts for "Parisian Love"and "The Undying Past"Greta GarboGreta Garbo
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