Flesh and the Devil

The film where the on-screen chemistry between Greta Garbo and John Gilbert became the most famous love affair in Hollywood — and you can see exactly why. Gilbert plays an Austrian officer whose lifelong friendship with his blood brother is shattered when both fall under the spell of a dangerously alluring woman (Garbo, in full smoldering magnificence). Director Clarence Brown and cinematographer William Daniels photograph Garbo as though she were a force of nature — the communion scene, where she turns the chalice to drink from the same spot as Gilbert, is one of silent cinema's most erotically charged moments. The film's frank sensuality pushed the boundaries of what 1926 audiences were accustomed to, and the passion between the leads is so convincing that it spilled into real life, making Garbo and Gilbert the most talked-about couple in America.