Ulrich quickly arranges Leo's bed to make it look like someone is in it. When Leo is missed at roll call, Ulrich announces that he is ill. The commander goes to investigate, pulls the covers and...
Leo is sleeping in the bed. The commander leaves and the friends celebrate pulling one over on the officer, until the officer returns and finds the sick Leo dancing. They are both sent off to shovel dung out of the stables.
A few months later, the two friends head for home. At the train station, they are met by Leo's mother and Ulrich's sister Hertha, who clearly has her eye on Leo. However, Leo's eyes are drawn to another, a beautiful woman exiting the train.
He asks his mother who the woman is. She does not know but speculates the woman is in town for the ball. We know where Leo is headed next.
At the ball, Leo rebuffs the advances of Hertha and looks for the mysterious woman. He finds her across the floor and sweeps her onto the dance floor. The pair soon are walking from the hall into a secluded part of the garden. There is a cigarette. They kiss...
Cut to them waking up in the woman's bedroom. All is right with the world. Until her husband arrives. He challenges Leo to a duel the next morning, a duel which Leo wins.
However, because he has killed a man, he must spend five years at a military outpost in Africa. Before he goes, he asks his friend Ulrich to look after the young widow.
Ulrich gets Leo out of the service a couple of years early and the exile returns to find his friend has married the love of his life. Ulrich believed the duel was over cheating at a card game and not the stunning young woman. He had no idea Leo had designs on her.
Will the three overcome these new obstacles or will their passion erupt in violence once more?
Flesh and the Devil is a true love triangle.
Leo loves the woman. Ulrich loves the woman. And Leo and Ulrich love each other.
Yes, you read that right.
Sure it's not overtly romantic. Except for the way the embrace. And look into each others' eyes. And speak to each other. They even get married (sort of). In 1926, there is only so far the movie could go with these themes, but it's hardly subtext. More like supertext.
The film excels at showing us instead of telling us about these relationships. We see Leo and Ulrich's friendship. We see Leo fall hard for Greta Garbo's Felicitas. And we feel every bit of the betrayal Leo feels when he returns to find Ulrich and Felicitas married. You believe these relationships. Leo and Ulrich feel like they have known each other forever. Which makes the knife twist all the more painful.
The direction by Clarence Brown made me sit up and take notice. Despite having seen two of his previous features, it was like I was seeing him for the first time. The camera is always right where it needs to be and every zoom and movement has a purpose. Really virtuoso stuff here.
There are a lot of great uses of light and shadow. The ethereal light that bathes Garbo in a glowas Gilbert goes to light her cigarette. The shadow of Garbo's husband stalking the young lovers before he enters the room. The ominous silhouettes of the duel. Gorgeous.
The symbolism is heavily slathered onto this movie, but that suits the melodrama perfectly. We see the statue of the two "friends" in the beginning. After their relationship fractures, we see it again, this time overgrown with vines with a literal branch growing between the figures. The lake that surrounds the Isle of Friendship freezes over as their relationship turns chilly.
The acting here is all around perfect. Gilbert's Leo has a mischievous streak, but also a loyalty to those he loves. His eyes allow you to see his love and lust, his seething rage when Felicitas is taken from him and his sad sense of defeat when he sees no escape from his feelings but death.
Lars Hanson's has a Ralph Fiennes look as Ulrich. He does not even realize he has betrayed his friend and Leo's distance literally wears him down.
Garbo is less a person here and more a device to bring the friends into conflict, but she fills her character's empty vessel with just the right sense of mystery and sensuality. She's Helen of Troy and with one look she can send men off to die for her.
I have a few years yet to go, but I will be shocked if Flesh and the Devil is not near the top of my Best of the 1920s list. It's brilliantly filmed, superbly acted with a story that's both simple and timeless. A must see.
***** out of *****
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