Production
Mauritz Stiller was originally set to direct Greta Garbo's second film for MGM. However, he was removed from directing, since his command of the English language was poor at the time. He was replaced by Fred Niblo. Stiller was unhappy with his dismissal, something that affected Garbo during the four months of filming The Temptress.
Swedish director Stiller had been influential in bringing Garbo to film and their partnership was so successful that when MGM took on Garbo they also hired the man who made her face recognizable. Soon after Garbo had filmed Torrent (1926), Stiller was called in to helm The Temptress. However, Stiller's arguing with the MGM bosses caused his dismissal even after shooting a considerable amount of footage. Despite its filming difficulties, The Temptress proved to be a success, showing early signs of Garbo’s career potential. Its worldwide gross was $965,000.
After the head of M-G-M viewed the finished picture, he was so depressed at the ending, that he ordered an alternate, happier ending to be made. Theaters at the time had the option of which ending to show, depending on what they felt were the tastes of their audience.
Read more about this topic: The Temptress
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Constant revolutionizing of production ... distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)