Felicitas... Can there ever have been a woman more ironically named?
When I saw this billed as a John Gilbert/Greta Garbo feature, I assumed it was to be a story of romance; of a great love-affair that would echo down the centuries. So, I suspect, does Leo (John Gilbert) - he is very young, and Felicitas, the older woman, is very beautiful. (It is a tribute to both actors that they make this age difference, not reflected in reality, subtly apparent.)
In fact, it is not a conventional romance at all. Felicitas remains an enigma, a beautiful, unforthcoming blank. We see her through Leo's eyes, and gradually we are shattered and disillusioned even as he is. One betrayal - of her husband for Leo - proves the idol to have feet of clay... but that, we can forgive. Adulterous heroines throughout history have made loveless marriages to rich older men before finding true romance in the arms of Our Hero - and it is natural, although less than honourable, to wish to conceal the husband's existence from the lover even as she conceals that of the lover from the husband.
The second betrayal - that of Leo for his friend Ulrich, whom he has asked to 'look after' the woman widowed by her lover's hand without, fatally, disclosing the truth of his relationship with her - is harder to forgive. But the idol with feet of clay is, after all, only a 'weak and feeble woman', alone in the world and separated from her lover with no knowledge of when he may be able to return, and Ulrich is as worthy of Felicitas' hand as he is of Leo's own lifelong friendship. How can we condemn her?
Even the third betrayal, of Ulrich for Leo, whom she persuades against all his scruples and his love for his friend to re-start their affair, may be written off as yielding to the love of a lifetime against all the tragic circumstances that have intervened - she has betrayed one husband for this man already, and doubtless It was Meant to Be... Only, as it turns out, it isn't like that at all.
The audience begins to suspect the truth before Leo does, but the final betrayal is still devastating. Felicitas is more in love with her wealth as Ulrich's wife than with Leo (she literally doesn't even spare Ulrich a glance, despite his stumbling attempts at comfort after his friend's departure, until he happens to mention that he is rich). When she refuses to let Leo make an honest woman of her by leaving her husband and facing social ruin at her lover's side, the scales begin to fall from Leo's eyes - and in the ensuing struggle, when Ulrich, aghast, bursts in to find his wife and his best friend writhing on the bed, Felicitas reacts just as she has always done. Namely, in her own best interests.
She betrays Leo by crying rape; and Leo, devastated alike by the perfidy of his mistress and the look in the eyes of his dearest friend, refuses to deny the accusation. He intends for Ulrich to kill him - if not there on the spot, then by pistols at dawn. And Felicitas, beautiful, unmoved, doesn't turn a hair.
This isn't a romance - even a doomed romance. In the end, it's the scenes that we at first assume to be mere stage-setting, then to be peripheral to the love-affair, that shape the story. It isn't a tale of star-crossed lovers. It's a film about two friends, and the mysterious, almost sinister, woman who comes between them.
When Felicitas dies on the ice, it is less a tragedy than a blessed release - and in that moment, the duellists see each other clearly once more, as the whole structure of obsession and disloyalty and shallow desire comes tumbling down. The effects of her lies and her greed are washed away in the icy water. 'Felicitas' has brought 'happiness' to no-one; but with her removal, older bonds of trust and loyalty assert their claim, and life can slowly begin to knit itself back together at last.
Technically speaking, this film is beautifully constructed. Almost every important development is prefigured, although I found Hertha's sudden access of religious fervour and Felicitas' hysterical response -- I thought she was going to strangle her to shut her up! -- in the last scene to be rather jarring. There are many moments of comedy and tenderness in amongst the melodrama, and the snowbound seduction scene by the firelight is still genuinely disturbing,even today. I didn't feel that the 'advanced' technical tricks I have seen so highly praised - the framing of the lovers in the husband's hand, the name beating to the rhythm of the engine's pistons - have worn so well, and I heard the film with a live piano accompaniment rather than with the 'Carl Davis score' American viewers applaud, so I can't comment on that. But Greta Garbo, in my first encounter with her, proved every bit as beautiful and talented as her contemporary reputation would have her - much to my surprise and pleasure - and Lars Hanson gave a shining performance as Ulrich, in a part that could so easily have come across as a cardboard cut-out of a wronged and virtuous man, but in fact established Leo's open-hearted friend as the most sympathetic character in the film.
When I saw this billed as a John Gilbert/Greta Garbo feature, I assumed it was to be a story of romance; of a great love-affair that would echo down the centuries. So, I suspect, does Leo (John Gilbert) - he is very young, and Felicitas, the older woman, is very beautiful. (It is a tribute to both actors that they make this age difference, not reflected in reality, subtly apparent.)
In fact, it is not a conventional romance at all. Felicitas remains an enigma, a beautiful, unforthcoming blank. We see her through Leo's eyes, and gradually we are shattered and disillusioned even as he is. One betrayal - of her husband for Leo - proves the idol to have feet of clay... but that, we can forgive. Adulterous heroines throughout history have made loveless marriages to rich older men before finding true romance in the arms of Our Hero - and it is natural, although less than honourable, to wish to conceal the husband's existence from the lover even as she conceals that of the lover from the husband.
The second betrayal - that of Leo for his friend Ulrich, whom he has asked to 'look after' the woman widowed by her lover's hand without, fatally, disclosing the truth of his relationship with her - is harder to forgive. But the idol with feet of clay is, after all, only a 'weak and feeble woman', alone in the world and separated from her lover with no knowledge of when he may be able to return, and Ulrich is as worthy of Felicitas' hand as he is of Leo's own lifelong friendship. How can we condemn her?
Even the third betrayal, of Ulrich for Leo, whom she persuades against all his scruples and his love for his friend to re-start their affair, may be written off as yielding to the love of a lifetime against all the tragic circumstances that have intervened - she has betrayed one husband for this man already, and doubtless It was Meant to Be... Only, as it turns out, it isn't like that at all.
The audience begins to suspect the truth before Leo does, but the final betrayal is still devastating. Felicitas is more in love with her wealth as Ulrich's wife than with Leo (she literally doesn't even spare Ulrich a glance, despite his stumbling attempts at comfort after his friend's departure, until he happens to mention that he is rich). When she refuses to let Leo make an honest woman of her by leaving her husband and facing social ruin at her lover's side, the scales begin to fall from Leo's eyes - and in the ensuing struggle, when Ulrich, aghast, bursts in to find his wife and his best friend writhing on the bed, Felicitas reacts just as she has always done. Namely, in her own best interests.
She betrays Leo by crying rape; and Leo, devastated alike by the perfidy of his mistress and the look in the eyes of his dearest friend, refuses to deny the accusation. He intends for Ulrich to kill him - if not there on the spot, then by pistols at dawn. And Felicitas, beautiful, unmoved, doesn't turn a hair.
This isn't a romance - even a doomed romance. In the end, it's the scenes that we at first assume to be mere stage-setting, then to be peripheral to the love-affair, that shape the story. It isn't a tale of star-crossed lovers. It's a film about two friends, and the mysterious, almost sinister, woman who comes between them.
When Felicitas dies on the ice, it is less a tragedy than a blessed release - and in that moment, the duellists see each other clearly once more, as the whole structure of obsession and disloyalty and shallow desire comes tumbling down. The effects of her lies and her greed are washed away in the icy water. 'Felicitas' has brought 'happiness' to no-one; but with her removal, older bonds of trust and loyalty assert their claim, and life can slowly begin to knit itself back together at last.
Technically speaking, this film is beautifully constructed. Almost every important development is prefigured, although I found Hertha's sudden access of religious fervour and Felicitas' hysterical response -- I thought she was going to strangle her to shut her up! -- in the last scene to be rather jarring. There are many moments of comedy and tenderness in amongst the melodrama, and the snowbound seduction scene by the firelight is still genuinely disturbing,even today. I didn't feel that the 'advanced' technical tricks I have seen so highly praised - the framing of the lovers in the husband's hand, the name beating to the rhythm of the engine's pistons - have worn so well, and I heard the film with a live piano accompaniment rather than with the 'Carl Davis score' American viewers applaud, so I can't comment on that. But Greta Garbo, in my first encounter with her, proved every bit as beautiful and talented as her contemporary reputation would have her - much to my surprise and pleasure - and Lars Hanson gave a shining performance as Ulrich, in a part that could so easily have come across as a cardboard cut-out of a wronged and virtuous man, but in fact established Leo's open-hearted friend as the most sympathetic character in the film.