Invisible shackles

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Movie
German title Invisible shackles
Original title The single standard
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1929
length 73 minutes
Rod
Director John S. Robertson
script Josephine Lovett
production Hunt Stromberg for MGM
music William ax
camera Oliver T. Marsh
cut Blanche Sewell
occupation

Invisible Fetters (OT: The Single Standard ) is an American silent film with Greta Garbo directed by John S. Robertson from 1929.

action

Arden Stuart is a young woman with her own ideas about love and morals. Instead of the double moral of society, she lives by her own rules, the “single standard” of the original title. She has an affair with her family's chauffeur, who commits suicide, which embroils Arden in a scandal. To escape the talk, she lived openly for a while with another man, the artist and former boxer Packy. Both cruise in the South Seas on a ship called The All Alone . After a while, Packy grows tired of her, and Arden returns to San Francisco, where she marries old admirer Tommy. She has a child, but a short time later Packy tries to win her over again. Tommy, quite a gentleman, is ready to give up Arden, but Arden realizes that her true calling is to be a good mother and wife.

background

Greta Garbo had risen to become one of the MGM's foremost stars since her debut in US film in 1925. From the beginning, the studio built Garbo into the actress of exotic women who suffer for and from love. With the advent of talkies, there was a growing uncertainty as to how the career of Garbo, who spoke English with a heavy British accent, would develop. As with all of the studio's top stars, MGM took its time to find the right vehicle for a sound film debut. So the studio was spared the fate of competitor Paramount , who in 1928/29 had to replace almost their entire star inventory and fill them up with new faces.

While Greta Garbo took targeted language lessons, the studio continued to produce silent films with her, the content of which were more or less variations of her well-known successes. Invisible shackles, based on the novel of the same name by Adela Rogers St. Johns , presented her as an American who fully corresponds to the ideal of the Roaring Twenties with their ideas about morality and sexuality. In this respect, the opening title also promises what the film is about:

"Men always did what they liked and women always did what men liked."

It makes sense that the award title in Austria was also appropriately called Same Moral .

Greta Garbo, as a woman who lives by her own rules, was already a box office success in A Shameless Woman from last year. Her partner Nils Asther had brought her into sexual distress as a Javanese prince in Wilde Orchideen , which was rented shortly before. The critics therefore also praised the chemistry between the two actors. There are some subtle allusions in the film to the already familiar image of Garbo as a loner. So Packy and she cruise through the South Seas on the yacht The All Alone . Arden also likes to take walks alone in the rain, just as the gossip press used to report about Greta Garbo.

The film sets are designed entirely in the spirit of art deco . The sets by Cedric Gibbons and the costumes by Gilbert Adrian are elegant and reserved, in keeping with the style of the time. Barry Paris, in his biography Garbo , reports that the striped house suit Garbo wears in the middle of the plot was her favorite costume throughout the MGM years. There is a still photo in which the actress poses next to Adrian in the aforementioned house suit. Oliver T. Marsh was the cameraman responsible for the film , but only when you look very closely do you see any differences in the lighting and recording technology compared to William H. Daniels , who filmed the previous films with Garbo. The later film stars Joel McCrea and Robert Montgomery , at that time still unknown, can be seen in small and uncredited supporting roles.

Theatrical release

The film went into national distribution on July 27, 1929. The production cost of $ 336,000 was the average cost of a Garbo silent film. It was successful at the box office, grossing US $ 659,000 in the US and another US $ 389,000, cumulative US $ 1,048,000. The profit was $ 333,000. Against the background of the talkie craze , the storm of viewers on sound films, that was an acceptable result.

Reviews

The critics praised the original script and the chemistry between the main cast.

Variety saw in Greta Garbo a role model for the female population:

"What some girls are already doing today and what many more would like to do, Greta Garbo does in 'Invisible Fetters'."

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Quoted from: The Single Standard. In: Garbo Forever. Retrieved on October 30, 2019 (English): "What some girls do today, and a lot more would like to, Greta Garbo does in The Single Standard"