Love
About Love
In a blizzard, Count Alexei Vronsky shares an inn with a veiled woman and tries to seduce her. She is Anna Karenina, wife of Senator Karenin, and she turns him away. Boredom sends her back. After a race she shows too much fear for him, Karenin casts her off, and she goes to Italy with Vronsky. She returns for her son Sergei, who has been told she is dead, and Karenin bars the house. She begs the Grand Duke to keep Vronsky in his regiment and then leaves him. European prints end with Anna under a train. American prints reunite them after Karenin dies.
Cast & crew
More about Love
Edmund Goulding directed it. Frances Marion and Lorna Moon wrote the screenplay. Marian Ainslee and Ruth Cummings wrote the titles. William H. Daniels photographed it. MGM opened it in New York on 29 November 1927. It runs 82 minutes. A synchronized score with effects was added for a 1928 release. Ernst Luz arranged that music. Walter Donaldson and Howard Dietz wrote the theme That Melody of Love. The story is taken from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.
Themes
Look
William H. Daniels photographed the blizzard inn, the race, and the rooms in St. Petersburg.
Music
Ernst Luz prepared the 1928 synchronized score. The theme song is That Melody of Love, by Walter Donaldson and Howard Dietz.
Notes
- John Gilbert plays Vronsky. Greta Garbo plays Anna. Brandon Hurst plays Karenin. George Fawcett plays Grand Duke Michael. Philippe De Lacy plays the boy.
- Exhibitors could pick the ending. Coastal theaters mostly used the train. Many houses in the middle of the country used the reunion.
- MGM's books list $946,000 in U.S. and Canada rentals and $741,000 abroad, for a profit of $571,000.
Scenes
- Vronsky and the veiled woman are stuck overnight at an inn.
- Anna brings birthday gifts to Sergei and Karenin finds her.
- In the European ending she steps in front of a train.
Influenced by
- Anna Karenina
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Love (1927 US).webm)
