Love (1927)

MGM
Directed by Edmund Goulding
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Greta Garbo and John Gilbert are the doomed lovers of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. He falls in love with the beautiful, but married, aristocrat. She initially rejects him, but eventually gives in to her desires. The crossed husband refuses to fight a duel with Gilbert, instead ruining both of their reputations and taking away her child. Garbo sacrifices their happiness to save his honor and standing in the military. Years pass, and they meet again, though with two outcomes: one happy for the American release and the other tragic for the rest of the world. While the latter is faithful to Tolstoy, it's still a bummer. The film works mainly because of the on-screen chemistry between Garbo and Gilbert, but it's an oversimplification of the much more complex novel.