WILLIAMS, Michael

Uncoupling ‘Gilbo’: Flesh and the Devil and the On/Off Romance of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo

 

By the time Flesh and the Devil (Clarence Brown, 1926) was released in early 1927, few film fans would have been unaware of the romance, both on and off the screen, of its leading stars, John Gilbert and Greta Garbo. Indeed, this pairing of the ‘Stockholm Venus’ from Europe and the American ‘doughboy’ hero of The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925) was central to M-G-M’s publicity campaign and they appeared arm-in-arm at the film’s Los Angeles premiere. The couple were even nicknamed ‘Gilbo’ in the press. While their affair is ubiquitous in the film’s promotion and continuing reception, this paper asks how the construction of their relationship impacted on Garbo and Gilbert’s star images.

Two key aspects interest me. The first is how the film’s narrative – revolving around a distinctly queer ‘love triangle’ – was significant in the textual and extra-textual production of their romance. Second, I explore how the subsequent tension, and ending, of their relationship reinforced their star personae for the late silent period. We thus have Garbo’s nascent image as an elusive, sculptural, and sexually ambivalent icon that becomes archetypal of Hollywood stardom: ‘she has no time for men…or love. This, by her own admission’, declared Photoplay. Later, the same magazine names Gilbert as ‘the gallant loser’, quoting the actor describing there being ‘something eternal’ about his co-star that is capable of a lot of ‘damage’, while his own career is now remembered as being foreshortened by the coming of synchronised sound. This paper examines the coupling, and uncoupling, of ‘Gilbo’.

 

Dr. Michael Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Southampton.