THE SINGLE STANDARD (1929)

This film opens with a quoted bit of wisdom: "For generations men have done as they pleased—and women have done as men pleased." At a glittering house party, we see young attractive Arden Stuart (Greta Garbo) on a balcony, looking both bored and amused as she watches three married men returning from a quick road trip with three women who are not their wives. Her boyfriend Tommy (Johnny Mack Brown) tries to get her interested in some canoodling but she's restless and instead takes off for her own midnight ride with the handsome family chauffeur. He's a former war pilot and before the hanky-panky happens, the two talk about wanting to live freely and honestly. When they return, they are greeted by her angry brother Ding (?!) who immediately fires the chauffeur who then proceeds to kill himself by crashing the car. In an existential funk, Arden isolates herself until one rainy day, she enters an art gallery and is fascinated by Packy Cannon (Nils Asther), a former boxer turned artist. The two begin a flirtation—as Liszt's "Liebestraum" plays on the background score—and when Packy says that for him, love is "equality and perfect freedom," Arden is hooked. He's about to set sail for a solo around-the-world trip on his yacht but impulsively asks Arden to join him which she does. After several months of romantic (and/or erotic) isolation, Packy eventually takes Arden back home and returns to the sea by himself. She is heartbroken and her behavior has caused her to be a figure of scandal, but she is invited to the latest society shindig anyway where lovesick Tommy begs her for another chance. She agrees to marry him, but she warns him that she can't promise what will happen if Packy comes back for her—which, a few years later, he does. By then, she is settled with a child, but the allure of the free life with Packy is tempting. What will she decide to do?

This is one of Garbo's last silent films and it's no emotional fever dream like The Flesh and the Devil or Wild Orchids; the direction (by John Robertson), cinematography, scenery and narrative flow are all rather plain which leaves the acting to spice things up, and luckily the lead trio comes through. This was touted as Garbo’s first "100% American role" and she does indeed play down her exotic appeal; you can imagine Katherine Hepburn playing this part—indeed, Arden could be a slightly different take on Hepburn's Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story, though Arden is more interested in sex than romance, unlike Tracy. Garbo is called on to be sad, frustrated, passionate, thoughtful and (eventually) a loving mother and she does a nice job on all counts. Asther (pictured with Garbo) is good as the male exotic and Brown is appealingly, stolidly masculine. They all come off as rather likable, unusual for a romantic triangle movie of the era. Zeffie Tilbury stands out in the supporting cast as a society matron. Definitely pre-Code material, if rather conventional in its ending. [TCM]