Lucybespro
It is a performances centric movie
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Fulke
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
dbdumonteil
"The kiss" took the melodramatic accents of Feyder 's precedent work " Les Nouveaux Messieurs"and tightened them up;whereas that work should have been boiled down to a 90 min movie, "the kiss" depicts a tragedy in admirably succinct style :only 62 min,a very good screenplay which does not reveal the whole truth before the last minutes.It's the classic story of the divine lady married with a graybeard without love ,in love with a more handsome gent;add a young man,pretending to be a man (the subject of the immature young lad will come back later in Feyder 's career in " Pension Mimosas")and all the ingredients of a good melodrama are in it.In Hollywood,Feyder accurately depicted his native land:in jails for women ,the wardens were nuns (in 1960 ,in Clouzot's "La Vérité" ,Brigitte Bardot was guarded by sisters too);and the gendarmes' uniforms are exactly as they were.After this successful work (which owed a lot to G.Garbo in her last silent movie) ,Feyder was disappointed with the screenplays left for him to direct and he came back to his native land and produced his greatest achievements :"Le Grand Jeu" ,"Pension Mimosas" and his masterpiece "La Kermesse Héroique".
Claudio Carvalho
In Lyons, Irene Guarry (Greta Garbo) is not happy with her marriage with the old businessman Charles Guarry (Anders Randolf) and is in love with the young lawyer André Duball (Conrad Nagel). Irene knows that the jealous Charles will never give the divorce to her; therefore they decide to stop seeing each other since she does not want to be an unfaithful wife and defy the convention. André also decides to move to Paris. One day, Irene knows the eighteen year-old college student Pierre Lassalle (Lew Ayres) in a party during his vacation and she learns that the youngster is infatuated with her. By the end of his vacation, Pierre asks a photo for Irene and she promises to give one to him. Meanwhile Charles has a meeting with Pierre's father Lassalle (Holmes Herbert) and discloses that he is on the verge of bankruptcy. Lassalle promises to help his friend and they schedule a meeting in the night. When Charles goes to the encounter, Pierre arrives at his home and asks for a goodbye kiss to Irene. Meanwhile Charles does not feel well and returns home, witnessing their kiss. Charles tries to kill Pierre and later the student arrives home and tells his father that Charles is dead. Irene is arrested accused of murdering her husband. What happened in Charles's office? "The Kiss" is a melodramatic romance and the last MGM and Greta Garbo's silent film and the debut of Lew Ayres. The movie has beautiful shots, a mystery and Greta Garbor extremely beautiful. Despite being a silent film, MGM uses sound technology with a powerful orchestral soundtrack. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Beijo" ("The Kiss")
Michael_Elliott
Kiss, The (1929) *** (out of 4) A flirtatious married woman (Greta Garbo) has an innocent relationship with a young kid (Lew Ayres) but when she gives him a friendly kiss goodbye tragedy follows. The main highlight here is Garbo, in her final silent and Ayres, in his film debut and their chemistry together. The two work remarkably well together and their innocent relationship really comes off as fun. The "tragedy" that happens plays out well but the really poor direction by Jacques Feyder kills this from being better. The TCM print ran 62 minutes but Maltin's book lists the running time at 82 minutes. I don't think anything was cut but instead they played the film at a higher FPS rate. This was also MGM's final silent picture.
sws-3
By the time "The Kiss" was made, Garbo was an established >superstar, and her films were specially tailored vehicles to >enhance this stardom. Yet, surprisingly, French director Jacques >Feyder subordinates Garbo to a rather pedestrian murder mystery. >Even worse, he cuts away from "the kiss" (between Garbo & Lew >Ayers) referenced in the title. M-G-M might have been too >worried over Garbo's imminent entrance into talkies to care. >The film is notable for its fantastic Art Deco sets, but also >suffers from one of the worst contemporary Movietone scores of >any late silent feature. A mixed bag.
