Fall feelings

Last week, Erin from "Still Live, With Cracker Crumbs" announced that she and Lisa from "Boondock Ramblings" will not have a "Comfy Cozy Cinema" event on their blogs this year. Instead they'll be doing "Sweater Weather Cinema" with fall movies ... and I found myself thinking that I didn't really know any except for Halloween movies and therefore probably wouldn't be able to participate.

Of course I know movies with fall scenes, but I never thought of them specifically as fall movies. To be honest, I had never thought about that topic at all until now.
Here Erin explains what a fall movie is for her. Check it out and if you have your own favorites, let her know and maybe tag along for the "Sweater Weather Cinema" with her and Lisa?

Now I let people know a lot - whether they want to hear it or not - that fall is my favorite season. I love the colors, the rain, the air, and of course saying goodbye to summer (and the fan).
However, I was surprised myself to find that many fall inspired items I made over the years, this is not even everything!

And of course I can't forget my Autumn Dawn and my Fairy Queen Jessica!

I guess I express my feelings in beads and wire?

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 173

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!

My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Do you ever wonder where your brain went without telling you?
The other day, I was in the kitchen and put some "emergency bread" into the oven (I don't bake and ran out of my bread from the bakery, but I usually have something in the fridge for cases like these). I set the timer and then boiled water for my favorite tea, topped up Gundel's plate - you know just stuff you do when you're waiting. Then I went back to my book, but there was a little voice telling me I forgot something.
Indeed I did. I had set the timer, but hadn't turned the oven on!
I'm truly the Queen of the Kitchen ...

I'm much better with books and decided to give Anne's and Olivia's "Friday Book Snippets" a try where you share a quote - a sentence or short paragraph - from the beginning of a book you read at the moment and one from page 56 (or another).

Today, mine are from "A Tiger's Wedding" by British actress Isla Blair.
Beginning: "I banged my sandals together to shake out any cockroaches or scorpions, the gesture an automatic reflex, like saying 'bless you' when someone sneezed."
Page 56: "The greatest change was in Fiona. At night there'd be choking sounds from her bed, which she'd try to muffle with her pillow and when I asked her if she was crying, she always said no. But she was - a gulping sort of crying."

Now let's get to the Weekend Traffic Jam!
As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Di-alog.

Di from Di-alog says: ... well, actually I couldn't find anything, but I can tell you that Di is a fashion blogger sharing her outfits and sometimes those of her husband Roger. Maybe one of the other hosts know more!

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Pat's community has had a "bear filled summer".

You won't be surprised that I enjoyed seeing Mireille's beaded earrings and the outfits she wore with them.

Lisa presents the 1945 movie "Without Love" with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

Deb takes stock now that spring starts in Australia.

Nicole talks about crazy clothes sizing.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent Movies - Mighty Like a Moose

Last week I talked about an affair that had a tragic ending for some, today's affair is very different.
If I tell you that Charley Chase is part of this one, you may remember that he was known for comedy. I think we deserve one after last week's drama.
I give you "Mighty Like a Moose" from 1926 (seems I'm stuck in this year at the moment, but that's mere coincidence!).

Let's start with the plot (spoiler alert!).

Mr. Moose has buck teeth and Mrs. Moose has a big nose.

The neighbor kids - no respect. I had to add this picture because it reminds me of the scene in "A Christmas Story" when the kids pranked their teacher by wearing fake buck teeth (from wax as you can read in the book that inspired the movie ... I'm digressing, sorry).

Both Mr. and Mrs. Moose have saved for months to surprise their spouse with a face lift - et voilà.

Mr. Moose's dentist has a before and after picture taken and also presents his patient with a set of false teeth so his family will still be able to recognize him. He also invites him to a party this evening, but Mr. Moose declines saying he's married.
Then he meets Mrs. Moose in the hallway, but they don't recognize each other and start flirting, so he invites her to the party. They both don't feel very good about betraying their spouse, but on the other hand they can't resist after seeing the effect of their respective surgeries.

They arrive at home separately and don't notice each other at first doing kind of a "dance" around each other - one comes into a room when the other one is just leaving it.
Once at the party, Mr. Moose tries to get a dance with his date, but instead she gets whisked away while he is asked to dance with a lady who only knows the polka (unfortunately I didn't manage to get a screenshot that really conveys how hilarious that dance is).
What no one knows is that the police is already waiting to raid the party as they suspect the doctor of alcohol possession (prohibition time!) and "arrest everybody for practice".
Mr. Moose has spotted the policemen and warns Mrs. Moose. They both turn around only to have their picture taken by the police. Remember, they don't know they're a married couple.

At home, Mr. Moose is surprised to find his date entering his house shortly after him. He overhears her telling the maid about the surgery and is shocked that his wife betrayed him. So he tells Mrs. Moose as her date that he can't live without her, then comes back with his false teeth, and finally stages a fight between "the date" and "the husband" (with the help of a swinging boot).

Unfortunately for him, Mrs. Moose has found the newspaper which also shows the before and after picture of her husband. When she slaps him for trying to trick her with the fake fight, he loses the false teeth.
Where are they? Oh, found them!

Mistaken identities have been the base for comedies for a long time. So when one reviewer writes that he doesn't understand how they didn't recognize each other, it made me laugh.
My favorite example - Clark Kent/Superman. For some weird reason, people still know who I am even without my glasses.
At least, we learn that Mrs. Moose has also bought new clothes her husband doesn't know yet.

I was also delighted at the immediate success of the surgeries. No bandages, no traces, no pain, the patient hops out of the chair and everyone is happy.
Don't we wish it really were that easy?
If you wonder, by the way, nose jobs have been around for quite some time - first in India around 600 B.C. In the West, they really caught on in the late 19th century and were not just used for mere aesthetics later, but also to help men wounded in the war. 

The fight Mr. Moose had with himself obviously wasn't realistic, either, especially at the end when he changed identities in seconds and always came from the same side.
All of that was cleverly edited, only Superman could have been this fast.

Does all of that matter, though? Of course it doesn't!
The whole movie used the wonderful choreography to make the audience laugh, and it sure worked for me.
I also enjoyed the funny title cards. My favorite was the one when Mr. Moose enters the house and gets attacked by his dog who doesn't recognize him with the new teeth so he has to put the fake set in.

This is of course a hint at RCA's Nipper listening to "His Master's Voice" (check out my post about Nipper if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Conclusion - is the movie realistic? No. Is it funny? Heck, yeah!
Even "laughing out loud" funny to me.
So far I enjoyed every Charley Chase film I have watched and I'm looking forward to exploring more of them.


Further reading:

Fritzi Kramer: Mighty Like a Moose (1926) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, April 27, 2014

Tell Us About ... Poetry

Time again for the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday of the month.
My posts will go live a little early (to avoid collision with the silent films), so if the posts of the others are not live yet, please check back later.
The current membership consists of Deb’s World, Suzy Turner, Within a World of My Own, Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After, Marsha in the Middle, Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa, and me. It's fun to learn how differently everyone interprets a topic.
You can play along and link up with us!
If that's too short notice for you, maybe next time? Here are the prompts for the coming months:
October - Birthday
November - Superstition
December - Why do you blog?

Photo by Trust "Tru" Katsande on Unsplash

The prompt for today was "Poetry", chosen by Marsha.
Oh Marsha. If you asked me, I'd say don't have a poetic bone in my body. I have never written a poem myself, not even bad ones as a teenager - unless you count the group effort in our literature class - and the first thing I associate with poems is reciting them in German class, limericks in English class, and of course the various "Poesiealben" in my life, those of others and my own (if you don't know what those are, check out the link).

My first real encounter with poetry - except for nursery rhymes - was probably when I won this little book in the lottery of a church fest in the 70s.
I read the poems dutifully, all 28 examples of "great German ballads" as the subtitle tells us, (eight of them by Goethe, figures), because that's what you do when you win something (I also used the colorful plastic egg cups and spoons I won at the same fest), but the only one that really stuck was the fairy ballad "Erlkönig", possibly because of the creepy ending.

Having to recite and interpret poems in school didn't make them any more interesting to me. I have to confess that I often only started learning them by heart the day before which usually worked out fine. It happened only twice that I painfully stuttered my way through poems, Goethe's "Der Zauberlehrling" and Mörike's "Der Feuerreiter" (both of which are actually in this book). Isn't it weird how I still remember the embarrassment, but not the grades I got? The reason is probably knowing I deserved them both, but the embarrassment weighed heavier.
One year, I asked my German teacher what I'd get for reciting Schiller's "Die Bürgschaft". It had obviously been meant as a joke in a conversation, but she challenged the whole class to do that for an extra 1 (as small part of the "oral grade") and to her surprise about a third of the class did it. The ballad has 150 lines and I can only remember the first seven.
Don't dare ask me how much I remember of "Der Zauberlehrling"!

I like a lot of classical music, but when I still played the violin (in the 17th century) or sang in choirs (until the late 19th century aka before a thyroid surgery took most of my range away), I actively looked for it and now I stumble upon it.
It's the same with poems. I don't hate all poems that materialize in my path, on social media, for example, or as part of a novel.
These days, the only poems I read intentionally are by Bill Bilston. They materialized thanks to a friend sharing them on Facebook and stuck. Check out his homepage with the newsletter and you will probably understand why.
I even own one of his books (so far). That one won't surprise you, either.

What about song lyrics, though?
I found an article by René Ostberg on "Britannica" that ends with "The debate over whether songs are poems (or whether poems are songs) may never end. But no one can deny that poetry and music are art forms of universal power and beauty."
If lyrics aren't poems, what does that mean for a poem that has been turned into a song? Such as Franz Schubert's version of "Erlkönig"? Is it still a poem because a "poet" wrote it - and how do we define a poet? Can't a musician be also a poet? Feel free to debate that, but let me tell you that the German word "Poet" isn't used that much anymore, we say "Lyriker" instead. Exactly, just as in the English word "lyrics" for song texts which we call, well song texts, just in German.



Actually, we have a radio channel that has had a show called "Pop & Poesie" for a long time. You hear a song and the German translation. I always hated it because the translation was a voiceover and I wanted to hear the song. It became so popular, however, that the idea developed into "Pop & Poesie in Concert" in 2008. Actors and actresses perform the original and the German translations - open air in summer - and then a band performs the song. An important part of the concert is the interaction between moderator, performers and audience.
I hate crowds, so I have never been there, but in this format I can imagine you get to experience and feel song lyrics differently - like poetry.
There are certainly song texts I regard as such and I remember a lot more of those, believe me. So maybe there's a small poetic bone there after all.


Now let's see what the others have to tell us.

Amy uses poetry for fun with friends and family.  Her grandmother has a published book of poems and her mom wrote a Christmas poem each year for her cards. 

Suzy writes about the time she accidentally became a published poet, despite never really considering herself a poetry person!

Debbie looks back at posts from 2016 where she made poems using online magnetic tiles - it was part of a craze she went through!  Who knew it would prove useful 10 years later?

Sally shares some of her favorite American poets and poems.

Marsha writes about her two favorite poems.  I wonder if you’ll be surprised!

This month’s prompt threw Leslie for a loop.

Stop by her blog for more of the scoop.

Your turn! Poems - yes or no?


P.S. I forgot that I still remember some of Heinz Erhardt's poems, but since he was a German comedian, actor, poet, etc. you wouldn't know him, anyway.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

The iconic phone box

I'm old. So old that I have plenty of memories of standing in a yellow "Telefonzelle" (literally "phone cell") for a phone call, either because I didn't want anyone to listen in at home - calls to my boyfriend - or because I was out and about. Yes, so old that I spent half of my life without a cell phone.
Not all of those memories were good ... like the time I called the ex to tell him I flunked my first driving test. Others were weird ... like the time I had a kind of party line effect and one person didn't understand that I had not even called them.

I remember the times when there were no telephone cards and you could only pay with coins, even those when a local call was really cheap even if you talked longer than a few minutes.
At the time, you could still see the coins you put in run down the chute behind a little window. Making an international call made your money disappear faster than ice in hot water.

That brings back memories
although my very first ones are
of black phones.

The wrong telephone model, but
the right phone box (on the right).
Picture by Juergen Rosskamp,
 CC BY-SA 2.0 DE 
via Wikimedia Commons

The title, however, may give you an idea of "the iconic phone box" (hint: not calling it phone booth) I really want to talk about.
It's of course the British phone box in red - the K series from K1 to K8 (K standing for kiosk).

K2 and K6 (the most common model) telephone
 boxes in Smithfield Market
Picture by Mike Quinn, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

As you can tell, however, it's not a Random Saturday post which is a sign that I'm not going to talk about its history in detail.
Instead I'm going to show you my latest Lego project.
I've had the set around since October 2025 and there's a reason why I had completely forgotten about it until now.
Now it was high time, however, to get the (Lego) box off the floor and the (phone) box on my shelf.
At least, I kept telling that myself for a few weeks. Until we had a partial power failure in the house. To distract myself during waiting for either a technician fixing it remotely or having to come to us to check it out, I finally grabbed the box and started.
Two days later, they found the problem hadn't been solved and turned the power off for repairs (actually the whole block had been affected). So cut off from everything (except contact via my 18 year old cell phone which was charged for a change), I managed to keep going. Silver linings, eh?

This phone box is based on the K2 kiosk.
There were telephone kiosks even before the K1 which was made from concrete with a teak door.
Only with the K2 which was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (like the cheaper K3 and later the K2 successor K6) and chosen by the GPO (Post Office) out of five models in 1925, phone boxes got their red color.
The first K2 was erected in Charing Cross Road 100 years ago - in March 1926 -, the others were set up mostly in London as it was a costly design.
Today, around 200 of them still exist and are listed Grade II (buildings etc. of special interest in a national context).
If you are interested in more details, check out the article cited below.

It almost took me 100 years to build the kiosk, at least it felt like it - all my own fault too as I had to bring in the wrecking ball more than once to fix a few very stupid mistakes. But hey, I have those inexplicable bouts of patience and determination, just ignore the bite marks in the bench and the tears on the phone box, please 😜

I love the fence, it reminds me of some in front of
houses in my old neighborhood which I loved even as a child.

Detail views

K2 interior for comparison
Picture by Murgatroyd49,
CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The phone box has a light brick. You press a button on top of the kiosk
and it lights up. It was hard to press the button and take a good picture
of the whole kiosk in the dark at the same time, but you get the idea.

It will look really good next to my London bus, don't you think?


Source and further reading (very interesting article):

Nigel Linge, Neil Johannessen, Andrew Hurley, Andy Simmons & Andy Sutton: Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s K2 Telephone Kiosk — A Design Classic. In: Industrial Archeology Review, 46, 2024, 2, pp. 87 - 98. DOI 10.1080/03090728.2024.2410137 (open access)

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 172

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!

My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

About a week ago, we had some thunder, and sun, and rain, and sun again, and the sky surprised us with some amazing clouds and a golden light.
There was also a beautiful full moon later shining through the fast travelling clouds, but I didn't think of taking a picture.
My sister, however, took these pictures in the late evening. What do you see in the clouds?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Try It - Like It - Create It.

Janet from Try It - Like It - Create It says: "You have to try something before you know you like it. Try it – Like it – Create it explores crafting, new products, travel and recipes. Try it – Like it – Create it shares it and reviews it all!
Janet Van Lone Trieschman is a mom who loves to create. She left a career as a college professor teaching Graphic Design to raise her family. Looking for a creative outlet, Janet started a website; Try it – Like it – Create it."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Soma shows us her Scotland inspired work.

Deb is talking about silliness.

Lynne has created a table setting with thrifted finds.

Amalia tells us about the lychee eating Captain of the Guard.

Esme has a ham courgette mushroom quiche (prepared by Rochelle) for us (obviously I'd skip the ham being vegetarian).


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Flesh and the Devil

This is not the first time I present a movie based on a book by German dramatist Hermann Sudermann (see here), but this is the first time I have one for you starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. Interested?
Prepare for "Flesh and the Devil" from 1926.

Here's the plot (with spoilers!).

Ulrich von Eltz, his sister Hertha, and Leo von Harden have been friends since childhood.
Ulrich and Leo are soldiers in a hussar regiment together.
 

When they are on home leave and get off the train to meet Hertha (who's desperately in love with Leo) and Leo's mother, Leo falls in love with a woman also getting off the train.

He meets her again at the first ball of the season and they begin a passionate affair.
Unfortunately, Felicitas "forgets" to tell Leo that she's married, and her husband surprises them and challenges Leo to a duel, but to avoid a scandal, a dispute at cards is given as the official reason.
Leo shoots Count von Rhaden and is advised by the military court to enlist in the African service for five years.
He asks Ulrich to look after Felicitas while he's gone. Ulrich visits Felicitas, and not knowing about her affair with Leo, he falls for her immediately. When he offers her his advice, she's not interested, but when she hears that he's rich and that "his purse is Leo's", he has her attention.

Leo is allowed to return after three years. Of course, he hurries home, but is shocked to be welcomed at the station by Ulrich and his wife - Felicitas.
He's determined to avoid them both from now on, but he can't stay away when Felicitas tells him how much Ulrich suffers from his friend's absence.

Felicitas keeps trying to seduce Leo, and despite the pastor delivering a fiery sermon aimed at them, they finally can't resist and decide to go away together that night.

Felicitas has packed and is waiting for Leo, but Ulrich comes back from a trip earlier than expected. He brings his wife an expensive diamond bracelet as a gift, and when Leo arrives to take her away, she lets him know that she isn't brave enough to leave and asks why they can't just stay and go on like this?

Leo is disgusted by the idea and tries to choke her when Ulrich storms in (we got a choking scene in the other Sudermann based movie as well, by the way). Felicitas claims that Leo wanted to force her to go away with him and choked her after she refused. Outraged, Ulrich challenges Leo to a duel in the morning.
The next morning - the men are already on their way to the Isle of Friendship where they became blood brothers as children - Hertha makes her way to Felicitas's room and implores her to prevent the duel.

Ulrich warns Leo that he will shoot to kill, but Leo just lifts the gun not pointing at Ulrich which makes his friend suddenly realize that Leo has loved Felicitas even before he did. They know that their friendship is more important than falling out over a woman.

Meanwhile, Felicitas has given in to Hertha's pleas. On her way to the island, however, she hits some thin ice and drowns without anyone hearing her cries for help.

Wow.
To be honest, I had expected some eye rolling as this kind of plot is usually too dramatic for me, and you may think the same from seeing the pictures.
That's not surprising as Sudermann's novel that the movie it's based on is from 1894, and having some experience with old "Engelhörnchen" or adventure novels that delve into military or student or Western bromances, I had been prepared. There's a lot of hugging.
 

My best friend and I never had the guts to become
"blood sisters", maybe a sculpture like that
would have helped us with that ... 😉

It's rather weird, but part of me feels the urge to make fun of the movie for its drama, its overacting in some scenes (I really thought Garbo overdid it in the scene with Hertha), the heroic bromance, and also for some of the comic relief moments, for example with the tippling pastor.

Another part isn't happy about the misogyny typical for that time.
Felicitas is the villain of the movie and there is no doubt she is the big manipulator, but it seems that she gets the whole blame because she's a woman, and I thought that wasn't quite fair.
At one point, the pastor says to Leo: "My boy, when the devil cannot reach us through the spirit ... he creates a woman beautiful enough to reach us through the flesh." (hence the title, in German the book and film are just called "Es war" (It was)).
Which of course gives Leo immediate absolution from giving in to temptation even after Felicitas is married a second time. To his best friend. Whom he hasn't told about the real reason for the first duel. His best friend, his blood brother. I wonder why he didn't tell him? Was he ashamed? Not ashamed enough, though, not to repeat the mistake? Because Eva, sorry, Felicitas was "beautiful enough" (which is an insult to women in itself in my opinion).

There were a few scenes to make us see how evil Felicitas was (so much that she had to die at the end).
We don't get to see the first duel completely, we only know Count von Rhaden died when his widow tries on black hats with a smirk on her face.
When the pastor delivers his accusatory sermon, she just looks at him and slowly refreshes her lipstick. In church!
When they receive their communion, the pastor turns the cup with the wine a little for each person, but she deliberately turns it back to press her lips to the same spot as Leo.

You may expect from me now to say that I didn't like the movie, but you would be wrong. I noticed all of these things, and yes, there was a bit of eye rolling here and there, but overall I really enjoyed the movie and Garbo is the main reason for that.
It's not difficult to see how this movie became her breakthrough.
She plays the femme fatale wonderfully and her scenes with Gilbert - which are quite steamy - profited from their budding relationship starting while shooting the film (which was of course very interesting to the audience).
Garbo kept working with the director Clarence Brown and the cinematograph William H. Daniels, if you watch the movie, you'll understand why. The light, the mood, it was the perfect stage for her - and for the whole story.

Countdown of the first duel

I watched the movie with a score by Carl Davis (you may know his work from "Pride and Prejudice" with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth) who wrote a lot of beautiful silent film music. It really enhanced the overall feeling.

Time for my final words - the movie absolutely gets a recommendation from me.

P.S. Oh hey, I almost forgot to mention the alternate ending that they didn't use. You see Ulrich and Leo sit with Leo's mother when Hertha comes out telling them that she's going to move to Munich now that she's 18. She gets in the carriage, but Leo runs after it. He makes her get out and they are standing there, lost in each others' eyes.
Glad they didn't use that!
P.P.S. Pet peeve alert ... it sure doesn't look as if they let a German handle the German phrases ...


Further reading:

1. "JEC": Flesh and the Devil (1926). On: A Cinema History, June 2018
2. Brandie Ashe: Feminist Fridays: Flesh and the Devil (1926). On: True Classics, September 10, 2010