A Woman of Affairs
Encyclopedia
A Woman of Affairs is a 1928 drama film
directed by Clarence Brown
and starring Greta Garbo
, John Gilbert
, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Lewis Stone
. The film was based on a 1924 play by Michael Arlen
, The Green Hat; as the play was considered so daring in the United States, the movie did not make any references to it and was renamed A Woman of Affairs, with the characters equally renamed to mollify the censors.
This was Greta Garbo's fourteenth film and the seventh of her Hollywood career. It was also her third collaboration with John Gilbert, after Flesh and the Devil
(1926) and Love
(1927), her second film with director Clarence Brown, and the first of seven movies with Lewis Stone
.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, for Bess Meredyth
's script.
In 1934, MGM made a remake of the film starring Constance Bennett
, titled Outcast Lady.
During their honeymoon to Paris
and after the arrival of police inspectors, David commits suicide without an explanation. Diana does not explain the reasons behind her husband's action. Jeffry, who was deeply connected to David, blames his sister for his friend's disappearance: he falls deeper into alcohol as his sister starts a reckless life, seducing man after man.
Years later, Neville returns to England to marry Constance (Dorothy Sebastian). Jeffry is gravely ill and both Diana and Nevs come to his bedside. As they meet, they realize they are still in love and spend one night together. Jeffry passes away and Neville marries Constance.
A few months go by: Diana falls ill (in the script she is supposed to have suffered a miscarriage, but because of censorship, this couldn't be mentioned) and is visited by Neville—Diana professes her love for him before realizing Constance is in the room. She reveals the reason for David's suicide: he was a thief, pursued by the Police. Diana, realizing that their love will ruin him, tells him that his wife is pregnant and sends him away.
Diana drives herself into a tree, in front of which she and Neville had fallen in love and swore eternal fidelity.
From Variety
, January 23, 1929
From The New York Times
, January 21, 1929
From Judge (text by Pare Lorentz
)
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Clarence Brown
Clarence Brown
Clarence Brown was an American film director.-Early life:Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to a cotton manufacturer, Brown moved to the South when he was 11. He attended Knoxville High School and the University of Tennessee, both in Knoxville, Tennessee, graduating from the university at the age of...
and starring Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, John Gilbert
John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert was an American actor and a major star of the silent film era.Known as "the great lover," he rivaled even Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw...
, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Lewis Stone
Lewis Stone
Lewis Shepard Stone was an American actor.Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, son of Bertrand Stone and Philena Heald Ball. Stone's hair grew gray by the time he was twenty. He fought in the Spanish-American War, then returned to a career as a writer. He soon began acting...
. The film was based on a 1924 play by Michael Arlen
Michael Arlen
Michael Arlen , original name Dikran Kouyoumdjian, was an Armenian essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter, who had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England...
, The Green Hat; as the play was considered so daring in the United States, the movie did not make any references to it and was renamed A Woman of Affairs, with the characters equally renamed to mollify the censors.
This was Greta Garbo's fourteenth film and the seventh of her Hollywood career. It was also her third collaboration with John Gilbert, after Flesh and the Devil
Flesh and the Devil
Flesh and the Devil is an MGM romantic drama silent film. It stars Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson, and Barbara Kent, directed by Clarence Brown, and based on the play The Undying Past by Hermann Sudermann....
(1926) and Love
Love (1927 film)
Love 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....
(1927), her second film with director Clarence Brown, and the first of seven movies with Lewis Stone
Lewis Stone
Lewis Shepard Stone was an American actor.Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, son of Bertrand Stone and Philena Heald Ball. Stone's hair grew gray by the time he was twenty. He fought in the Spanish-American War, then returned to a career as a writer. He soon began acting...
.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, for Bess Meredyth
Bess Meredyth
Bess Meredyth was a film writer and silent film actress. The wife of the Casablanca director Michael Curtiz, Meredyth wrote The Affairs of Cellini and adapted The Unsuspected . She was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
's script.
In 1934, MGM made a remake of the film starring Constance Bennett
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...
, titled Outcast Lady.
Plot
Diana (Greta Garbo), Nevs (John Gilbert) and David (Johnny Mack Brown) were playmates as children, members of the rich British aristocracy. Diana and Neville are in love, but his father (Hobart Bosworth) opposes the match, disapproving the Merrick family's lifestyle. Neville is thus sent to Egypt for business purposes and become wealthier. At the same time, David, also in love with Diana and good friends with her brother Jeffry (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), marries her, after Diana's wait in vain for two years for Neville's return.During their honeymoon to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and after the arrival of police inspectors, David commits suicide without an explanation. Diana does not explain the reasons behind her husband's action. Jeffry, who was deeply connected to David, blames his sister for his friend's disappearance: he falls deeper into alcohol as his sister starts a reckless life, seducing man after man.
Years later, Neville returns to England to marry Constance (Dorothy Sebastian). Jeffry is gravely ill and both Diana and Nevs come to his bedside. As they meet, they realize they are still in love and spend one night together. Jeffry passes away and Neville marries Constance.
A few months go by: Diana falls ill (in the script she is supposed to have suffered a miscarriage, but because of censorship, this couldn't be mentioned) and is visited by Neville—Diana professes her love for him before realizing Constance is in the room. She reveals the reason for David's suicide: he was a thief, pursued by the Police. Diana, realizing that their love will ruin him, tells him that his wife is pregnant and sends him away.
Diana drives herself into a tree, in front of which she and Neville had fallen in love and swore eternal fidelity.
Cast
- Greta GarboGreta GarboGreta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
- Diana Merrick Furness - John GilbertJohn Gilbert (actor)John Gilbert was an American actor and a major star of the silent film era.Known as "the great lover," he rivaled even Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw...
- Neville 'Nevs' Holderness - Lewis StoneLewis StoneLewis Shepard Stone was an American actor.Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, son of Bertrand Stone and Philena Heald Ball. Stone's hair grew gray by the time he was twenty. He fought in the Spanish-American War, then returned to a career as a writer. He soon began acting...
- Dr. Hugh Trevelyan - Johnny Mack BrownJohnny Mack BrownJohnny Mack Brown was an All-American college football player and film actor originally billed as John Mack Brown at the height of his screen career.-Early life:...
- David Furness (as John Mack Brown) - Douglas Fairbanks Jr. - Jeffry Merrick
- Hobart BosworthHobart BosworthHobart Bosworth was an American film actor, director, writer, and producer.-Early life:Born Hobart Van Zandt Bosworth, he was a direct descendant of Miles Standish and John and Priscilla Alden on his father's side and of New York's Van Zandt family, the first Dutch settlers to land in the New...
- Sir Morton Holderness - Dorothy SebastianDorothy SebastianDorothy Sebastian was an American film and stage actress.-Early life and career:Sebastian was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. In her youth she hoped to be a dancer and later a film actress. Her family frowned on both ambitions, however, so she fled to New York at the age of 15...
- Constance
Critical response
All Movie Guide provides a rating of three stars.From Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, January 23, 1929
A sensational array of screen names, and the intriguing nature of the story (The Green Hat) from which it was made, together with some magnificence in the acting by Greta Garbo, by long odds the best thing she has ever done, will carry through this vague and sterilized version of Michael Arlen's exotic play.... But the kick is out of the material, and, worse yet, John Gilbert, idol of the flappers, has an utterly blah role. Most of the footage he just stands around, rather sheepishly, in fact, while others shape the events. At this performance (the second of the Saturday opening), whole groups of women customers audibly expressed their discontent with the proceedings.... Miss Garbo saves an unfortunate situation throughout by a subtle something in her playing that suggests just the exotic note that is essential to the whole theme and story. Without her eloquent acting the picture would go to pieces.
From The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, January 21, 1929
Not only is the narrative translated with changes only where it was obviously necessary to circumvent censorial frowns, but Miss Garbo gives a most intelligent and fascinating impersonation of that 'sad lady' . . . Mr. Gilbert does nicely as the man with whom Diana is madly in love . . . Except for his penchant for flashes of symbolism, Clarence Brown has handled this production imaginatively and resourcefully. The story is never confused, and while the reason for all the trouble may at times be somewhat incredible, the scenes are invariably beautifully photographed and admirably constructed.
From Judge (text by Pare Lorentz
Pare Lorentz
Pare Lorentz was an American filmmaker known for his movies about the New Deal. Born Leonard MacTaggart Lorentz in Clarksburg, West Virginia, he was educated at Wesleyan College and West Virginia University. As a young film critic in New York and Hollywood, Lorentz spoke out against censorship in...
)
The most interesting feature of A Woman of Affairs is the treatment accorded it by the censors. As is obvious, the story was adapted from Michael Arlen's best seller, The Green Hat, and, as every reader of that Hispano-Suiza advertisement will recollect, the heroine's white feather was borne for the proud fact that her suicide husband suffered from an ailment enjoyed by some of our most popular kings, prelates and prize-fighters. Well, sir, Bishop Hays changes that to “embezzlement.” And, for some strange reason, instead of using the word “purity” (the boy died for purity, according to Iris March) they substituted the oft-repeated word “decency.” To anyone who can show me why “purity” is a more immoral word than “decency,” I'll gladly send an eighty-five cent Paramount ticket, to be used at your own risk. Outside of its purification, the movie is a good dramatization of the novel and for the first time I respected the performance of Greta Garbo. She shuffled through the long, melancholy and sometimes beautiful scenes with more grace and sincerity than I have ever before observed, and the fact that she rode down and practically eliminated John Gilbert's goggling is in itself grounds for recommendation. Another indifferent performer, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., suddenly snapped to life under the guidance of Director Brown, and gave a splendid performance. Lewis Stone made his usual calm and reserved appearance and, even with its melancholy apathy, you will find A Woman of Affairs worth seeing.
Box office
The movie was a hit, garnering receipts of USD 1.370.000 (USD 850.000 in the US and USD 520.000 abroad), vs. a budget of USD 383.000. It was one of the top 20 box office films of 1929.Home media
A Laserdisc edition was released on October 12, 1992 by MGM/UA as part of MGM's Silent Classics series and a VHS release of the film was made in the USA on September 1, 1998 (NTSC format).External links
- A Woman of Affairs at Silents are Golden
- http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/55078/A-Woman-of-Affairs/overviewA Woman of Affairs review at The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
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