Torrent
About Torrent
Doña Bernarda Brull blocks her son Rafael (Ricardo Cortez) from marrying the peasant Leonora (Greta Garbo). Leonora goes to Paris and becomes the opera singer La Brunna. She comes home and meets Remedios (Gertrude Olmstead), the woman Rafael is now engaged to. A flood hits the town, and Rafael pulls his mother and Remedios from the water. Years later Leonora and Rafael, who has married, meet again. She still loves him, then goes back to the stage, and he stays with his wife.
Cast & crew
More about Torrent
Monta Bell directed, uncredited. Irving Thalberg produced. Dorothy Farnum adapted Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's novella Entre naranjos. William H. Daniels photographed it, and Frank Sullivan edited it. MGM released it on 21 February 1926. Reported returns were $460,000 in the United States and $208,000 abroad, with a $126,000 profit.
Themes
Background
An MGM silent of February 1926, released the year before Garbo's first sound tests and two years before her talking debut.
In film history
Garbo's first American picture, and the film that persuaded MGM the Swedish actress could carry a Hollywood lead.
Making
Thalberg put Garbo, newly arrived from Sweden, into a Blasco Ibáñez story already owned for an American silent, and Daniels shot her as the peasant who becomes La Brunna.
Reviews
Variety called Garbo "a girl with everything, looks, acting ability and personality," and treated Louis B. Mayer's decision to star her as justified by the film's success.
Audiences
MGM recorded a worldwide gross of $668,000 and a profit of $126,000.
Look
William H. Daniels photographed Garbo's first American film, including the town flood.
Music
Silent. A music credit is listed for Arthur Barrow.
Preservation
Released on DVD by Warner Archive Collection in 2011. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- It is Greta Garbo's first American film. MGM had been unsure about casting her after she arrived in Hollywood.
- The title is the flood in the town, which pulls Rafael back toward Leonora when he saves his mother and Remedios.
- Martha Mattox plays Doña Bernarda Brull. Lucien Littlefield plays the barber Cupido, and Tully Marshall plays the lawyer Don Andrés.
- Warner Archive Collection issued it on DVD in 2011.
Scenes
- Rafael pulls his mother and Remedios out of the flood.
- Leonora, now La Brunna, meets Rafael again after he has married.
Influenced by
- Entre naranjos (Vicente Blasco Ibáñez)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons
- Warner Archive Collection DVD (2011)
