Legend has it that when the two first met on the MGM back-lot, John Gilbert called, "Hello, Greta", to which Greta Garbo coolly responded, "It is Miss Garbo." Immediately smitten by this indifferent Swedish beauty, Gilbert engaged Garbo in a whirlwind romance, much to the delight of the movie-going public and the studio brass.
He gladly introduced her to his business manager, Harry E. Edington, who thereafter became her salary negotiator. Once this film was released, it was so popular that Garbo could almost dictate the terms of her renewed MGM contract. With Edington's help, her salary shot from $600 per week to $2,000 per week, a figure that was contractually bound to triple in three years. Perhaps more significantly, she also gained control over the types of roles she would play in the future. This crucial development enabled her to play something besides man-eating vamps, to cultivate the Garbo mystique, a combination of sultry passion, tender innocence and cool insouciance that has made her a cinematic icon.
He gladly introduced her to his business manager, Harry E. Edington, who thereafter became her salary negotiator. Once this film was released, it was so popular that Garbo could almost dictate the terms of her renewed MGM contract. With Edington's help, her salary shot from $600 per week to $2,000 per week, a figure that was contractually bound to triple in three years. Perhaps more significantly, she also gained control over the types of roles she would play in the future. This crucial development enabled her to play something besides man-eating vamps, to cultivate the Garbo mystique, a combination of sultry passion, tender innocence and cool insouciance that has made her a cinematic icon.
William H. Daniels, who had worked with Erich von Stroheim earlier in the decade, essentially sculpted light to showcase the actress's alluring beauty. Greta Garbo's visage is warmed by flickering flames in one love scene before a fireplace, while in another scene the light through a rain-soaked window bathes her face with the gentle shadow of raindrops. In the film's most famous lighting effect, John Gilbert lights her cigarette in a shadowy garden and the two lovers huddle together in the warm glow of the flaming match (actually a pair of small arc carbon lamps concealed in the actor's palm). It was very hot and dangerous yet provided a remarkable visual effect.
When Leo is obliged to duel with the count, the scene is played in silhouette against a vast white sky. The duelists march away from one another until they are off-screen, and one sees nothing more than the puffs of smoke as their pistols are fired from each side of the frame.
"The saddest thing in my career is that I was never able to photograph her in color," Daniels later recalled. "I begged the studio. I felt I had to get those incredible blue eyes in color, but they said no. The process at the time was cumbersome and expensive, and the pictures were already making money. I still feel sad about it."
When Leo is obliged to duel with the count, the scene is played in silhouette against a vast white sky. The duelists march away from one another until they are off-screen, and one sees nothing more than the puffs of smoke as their pistols are fired from each side of the frame.
"The saddest thing in my career is that I was never able to photograph her in color," Daniels later recalled. "I begged the studio. I felt I had to get those incredible blue eyes in color, but they said no. The process at the time was cumbersome and expensive, and the pictures were already making money. I still feel sad about it."
The film was such a commercial success for MGM Studios and such a breakout film for Greta Garbo, that she was considered 12% of the entire studio's value by 1927.
Felicitas was first conceived for Lillian Gish. But as MGM was paying Gish $800,000/year along with full creative control (which chief Louis B. Mayer considered a genuine bargain), the role was assigned to newcomer Greta Garbo, who was contracted at $450/week.
Director Clarence Brown was so awed by the developing romance between John Gilbert and Greta Garbo that at the end of one particularly passionate scene he did not even call "cut"; instead motioning the lighting and camera crews to stop filming. They withdrew from the set and, after a few hours, had dinner sent in. He observed the on-and-off screen romantic chemistry between his two stars and was inspired to wax poetic: "They are in that blissful state of love so like a rosy cloud that they imagine themselves hidden behind it, as well as lost in it."