Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

jacobs-greenwood Greta Garbo plays the title role, a beautiful woman who destroys all who come in contact with her. The film boasts a brand new score, written by Michael Picton of New York, winner of TCM's fifth annual Young Film Composers competition.The film begins with Elena (Garbo) meeting and falling in love with Robledo (Antonio Moreno) at a masquerade ball in Paris. They spend the night together in a park, declaring their love for one another, he giving her a ring, before departing. The next day, Robledo calls on a friend, the Marquis de Torre Bianca (Armand Caliz). Evidently, Robledo has been working in Argentina and had just returned to town. The Marquis introduces Robledo to his wife which, to his surprise, is Elena. He is disillusioned and upset. Wanting nothing more to do with her, he leaves.Elena and the Marquis have been invited to a party, thrown in her honor, by a banker named Fontenoy (Marc McDermott). Seated around a large dinner table, Fontenoy (at the head of the table with Elena on his right) stands and proposes a toast. It will be his last, as he launches into a diatribe against Elena, labeling her a "temptress", blaming her for his financial ruin, he drains his glass (which he had previously filled with poison) and collapses on the table.Back at their home, the Marquis, who had encouraged his wife's affair with Fontenoy, informs Elena that he too is overwhelmed with debt. Distraught over the incident and the departure of Robledo, she empties her jewel box, giving all that she received from Fontenoy to the Marquis. Robledo arrives to comfort his friend and tell him that he is returning to Argentina. As he is leaving, Elena tries to convince him that she really does loves him, but he doesn't and departs.When Robledo returns to Argentina, he receives a hardy reception from the whole town, especially associates Canterac (Lionel Barrymore) & Pirovani (Robert Anderson). We learn that these men have escaped their financial troubles, and women, back home by traveling to this remote country to spearhead the construction of a dam. Their efforts are being stalled by a local bandit Manos Duras (Roy D'Arcy) and his men.Low and behold, the Marquis shows up to visit Robledo, and he has brought Elena. He tells Robledo he had no choice since she financed the trip. Elena dresses formally for dinner and every other occasion, showing up the local shoeless women and entrancing all the men. Manos, who observed her arrival, comes to Robledo's one evening to serenade Elena. Though, up to this point, Robledo had shown nothing but disdain for her, he fights Manos to protect her honor. Even though they use whips, with which Manos is a master, Robledo wins. After which, alone with Elena as she tends to his wounds, Robledo denies that his actions were a sign that he loves her. And Manos, still seething from his loss in the fight, returns to shoot Robledo but kills the Marquis instead.Free from marriage, Elena has distracted the men. Robledo's associates Canterac and Pirovani have even forgotten about their women back home. One night, the town throws a party in her honor, during which Canterac kills Pirovani with his sword over Elena. Manos, who had not lost sight of the larger fight of stopping the foreigners from completing their project, chooses that night to dynamite the dam.There are some pretty good special effects, given the year of the film, and some exciting action sequences as Robledo and the men try to repair the damage before it floods. However, they are not successful and a tired, nearly drowned Robledo returns to find Elena. Though at first he tries to kill her, he finds that he cannot and, with his resistance low, he succumbs, declaring that he is beaten and that he does love her. As he sleeps, and though she had insisted to Robledo that she had never used the word "love" with anyone else, she leaves him, with a note telling him that she will not be his ruin.Six years later, the dam is completed and the engineer Robledo is back in Paris being lauded for his success by a crowd of people, his fiancée on his arm. As they are climbing into a cab, however, Robledo sees a women in the crowd that he thinks is Elena. He follows her, finding her in a cafe, where he buys her a drink. He is surprised that she doesn't seem to remember him, and soon leaves. Elena then has a vision, that a man across the cafe is actually Jesus Christ, halo and all. It is then revealed that she has kept Robledo's ring, the one he had given her that first night they met. She gives to the man and the film ends with her walking away, alone down the street.

Marcin Kukuczka "The Temptress has now been shown here—terrible. The story, Garbo, everything is extremely bad. It is no exaggeration to say that I was dreadful. I was tired, I couldn't sleep and everything went wrong..." (Greta Garbo)The roaring twenties...not a very enthusiastic quotation, particularly when we consider the fact its author is Garbo herself, the Garbo people flock to see as a vamp, as a femme fatale who wins and ruins men, as a beauty on the screen, an object of dreams and desires. And so has the driving force been for all these years - I doubt whether THE TEMPTRESS would be watched by anyone nowadays ... if it were not for GARBO. However, she detested it and no wonder why...For most people who know Garbo's psyche a bit, her melancholy her moments of peace, moments of being 'let alone' and, moreover, what a period it was (the mid 1920s) in her career are close to understand how she must have felt: director Mauritz Stiller, her tutor and a person who taught her skills, who directed her in Swedish GOSTA BERLING SAGA (1923) and brought her to America, is fired just a few days after the production begins; she still does not understand/speak English so well and intuitively learns whom to consider 'familiar soul' among many 'foreigners' in the glossy and tremendous studio that MGM was at the time. What is more, her sister Alva dies in the faraway Sweden. And no wonder she writes the aforementioned bitter words to her friend in Stockholm Lars Saxon. But, the test of time shows something more optimistic and within the variety of opinions and MGM targets of the 1920s, THE TEMPTRESS is overall not that bad as a movie... The CONTENT...Marked by spiritual/religious references at the beginning and at the end (from Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European Nobel laureate to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world who died for love and manifests his presence in the people in need), the content is visibly the product of MGM studio system and its methods: goodness vs evil clash that uprights the hearts: love that conquers hatred and reconciliation that overcomes vengeance. As it is quite a common theme for films of the time, I would highlight more the technical aspects of the movie some of which appear to be more convincing and more appropriate in this relation. The TECHNICAL MERITS appear, of course, thanks to the people Garbo liked and worked with.The direction by Fred Niblo, famous for his silent BEN HUR but also for a later Garbo film, THE MYSTERIOUS LADY, is a subtle work filled with stylish moments and delicate as well as thrilling handling of scenes. Although he replaced Stiller, her "sole tutor and companion," (whose style was quite remarkable but different from what they did and understood in Hollywood), she must have felt pretty comfortable under Niblo's direction as she left him a touching note after the work had finished. The lighting by William Daniels, a crucial name of all Hollywood Garbo films, boasts of truly remarkable moments. The effect is no lesser than in greater films, in particular when filming Garbo's face. Consider the scene at the mirror, for instance...indeed, most of what we see of Garbo and her acclaimed "performance for the camera" we owe to Daniels. He captured that essence of her sensitivity to light and shadow as portrait photographer Sinclair said: "Garbo 'feels' the light." And...production by Irving Thalberg, perhaps he did not play that role as in later cooperation with Garbo, but, undeniably, prompted the energy and unbelievable possibilities from the inside of the Swedish Sphynx. As a result, Garbo's portrayal of intriguing Elena is worth appreciation.And here arises a tricky but a logical question: So why isn't THE TEMPTRESS considered to be a significant GARBO SILENT FILM? First, Garbo is the best vamp in FLESH AND THE DEVIL; second, her best leading man is John Gilbert (one of the most famous pairing the screen has ever seen); third, the most 'exotic' and arousing locations are in WILD ORCHIDS; fourth, Garbo's most magical moments are in A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS; fifth, the lighting pearls are in THE MYSTERIOUS LADY (particularly its 'candle sequence'; sixth, THE TEMPTRESS was not viewers' first fascination with Garbo because her Hollywood debut is not THE TEMPTRESS but THE TORRENT. So... this film has been bound for years to negligence (nothing special for many). However, it occurs to be undeserved and unfair...Antonio Moreno is not bad as her leading man...has his moments at least; some of the supporting cast do fine jobs, including Lionel Barrymore as Canterac who appears, years later, in a specific talkie with Garbo, GRAND HOTEL; some scenes can boast of brilliant camera-work (just to mention the witty and visual banquet at Fontenoy's or the presentation of the Argentine); many moments can boast of thrill, including the Argentine fight between Robledo (Antonio Moreno) and the wicked Manos Duras. Except for many clichés noticeable in the film, which, certainly, lower its value, it is important to consider such atmospheric scenes like the masquerade.Although detested by the main STAR of the film, by the leading lady who was unique and brilliant at multiple levels, THE TEMPTRESS is not so bad. Garbo alone helps us get rid of some sophisticated expectations from the content. As a matter of fact, more of her films do not boast of particularly clever content...yet, EVERY Garbo film is worth seeing because of her tremendous presence on the screen, the unforgettable magic and something really special which she offered the cinema of her time and the cinema of all periods. See this silent film AFTER you have seen hyper-sensual FLESH AND THE DEVIL, subtle A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS, refreshing THE SINGLE STANDARD, innovative THE KISS, stunning THE MYSTERIOUS LADY but allow yourself at least a single viewing of its beautifully restored DVD version. You will not be disappointed.

Snow Leopard This silent drama provides an interesting role for Greta Garbo, who was still rather young at the time. It also has some good set pieces created by directors Fred Niblo and/or Mauritz Stiller, which liven up the story considerably. The supporting cast also features a couple of good performances, and all of the strengths help to make up for a rather downbeat story.As "The Temptress", Garbo is certainly believable as a woman who attracts the attention of every man around. What makes it more interesting than most such scenarios is that both the script and Garbo's performance leave some ambiguity about what the character is really like inside, and in any case she has a lot more depth than the male characters. The best supporting performances come from Lionel Barrymore and Marc McDermott, as two of the many men who desire her.Several sequences are filmed very nicely. Fontenoy's dinner party is an effective display of the hollow lifestyle it depicts, and there is some real danger and menace in the fight scene between Robledo and Manos Duras. The pace overall is uneven, and it does have some slow stretches that add unnecessarily to the running time, but the good parts make up for this. At least one DVD version includes a variant ending that changes the tone considerably, so there must have been some uncertainty about how it should close.Garbo's talent and screen presence are both easy to see, and in later features her characters would give her better opportunities to show them. She does a very good job here, and makes her character much more interesting than it would have been with a lesser performer in the role. Overall, it's a movie worth seeing for silent film fans, with some real highlights that make up for the occasional shortcomings.

lugonian THE TEMPTRESS (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1926), personally directed by Fred Niblo, from the novel by Vicente Blasco-Ibanez, stars Swedish actress Greta Garbo in her second Hollywood production, following her American debut in THE TORRENT (1926), and the first to place her name on top of the casting credits. As with her MGM debut, Garbo plays a girl of Spanish origin (this was the last to do so), and like so many films that were to follow, especially during the silent era and early talkies, she would portray a woman (usually unhappily married) who satisfies her emotions with illicit affairs, finding the one man she truly cares about, and destroys those around her before reaching bottom herself, committing suicide, or both. THE TEMPTRESS would set such a pattern.The story opens in Paris at a masquerade party where the unhappy Elena (Garbo) meets Manuel Robledo (Antonio Moreno), an Argentine engineer. After removing their masks, they fall in love under the stars. Later when he comes to visit his friend, Marques De Torre Bianca (Armand Kaliz), Manuel is stunned to learn that his wife happens to be Elena. At the dinner party, Marquis Fontenoy (Marc MacDermott), a middle-aged banker permitted by Bianca to have Elena be his mistress in order for them to be financially secure, distracts the guests by making a startling speech on how Elena, the temptress, has ruined his life, and dropping dead at the table after taking his drink of poison. Disgusted by the ugly truth, Manuel decides to forget Elena by leaving for the Argentine where he accepts a water dam building project. Just as Manuel is slowly forgetting Elena, she arrives with her husband, and by doing so, causes frustration and destruction to both men, and others as well, with Manuel, who feels she to be responsible for the murder of his friend and husband, as well as the near destruction of his dam dynamited by his enemy, finds he still cannot resist her.The supporting players include Lionel Barrymore as Canterac, one of the construction workers who falls victim to Elena; Robert Anderson as Pirovani, the friend Canterac kills because of Elena; and Virginia Browne-Faire as Celinda, the pretty young girl who silently loves Manuel. Adding to sin and destruction is Roy D'Arcy as Manos Duros, the bandit leader, in a menacing performance as Manuel's arch enemy who, after forcing his intentions on Elena, is challenged by Manuel to a duel, with the bandit's method being the use of whips. The bull whip duel is one of the high points in the story, resulting to whip scars on the bare torsos covered with blood, as well as Manos, who fights dirty, aiming for the eyes, being quite graphic for its time.THE TEMPTRESS, an important project that helped advanced the screen career of Greta Garbo, at long last, premiered January 24, 2005, on Turner Classic Movies cable channel, accompanied by a new score composed by Michael Picton. Scoring a silent movie is challenging, as mentioned in the half hour special that preceded the movie, and minutes into watching THE TEMPTRESS, the result of Picton's work is satisfactory and rewarding. In spite the fact that host Bob Osborne announced THE TEMPTRESS as making its world television premiere, it actually did play on television, but many years ago. THE TEMPTRESS was one of the selected 13 silent films shown weekly on the public television series in commemoration of MGM's fifty years titled "Movies-Great-Movies," (WNET, Channel 13, in New York City from August to October of 1973) hosted by Richard Schickel, movies accompanied by an an orchestral score (and in the New Jersey area as part of the 1974 series, "Films of the Gatsby Era," with same movies, different hosts, on WNJM, Channel 50). THE TEMPTRESS, which premiered in New York City August 13, 1973, made its final TV run on WNET in May of 1978 as part of the double bill five week movie tribute to Garbo and Katharine Hepburn. Schickel, as did Osborne, talked about how Garbo's discoverer, Mauritz Stiller, started out as the film's director, but due to complications during production, was replaced by Fred Niblo. The information regarding THE TEMPTRESS remains the same, with the exception of its time length. When shown in the 1970s, the running time was about 114 minutes. TCM's print runs at 105. But regardless of its length, possibly due to projection speed, THE TEMPTRESS is a welcome addition to the TCM lineup, and well worth viewing again after many years or the first time ever. While THE TEMPTRESS belongs to Antonio Moreno, whose name is almost forgotten today, it owes its success to the temptress herself, Greta Garbo, which is the sole reason for its rediscovery. (***)