The Kiss

The Kiss (1929)

A woman made for love...sacrificed on the altar of a desperate passion...

An unhappily married woman is caught up in scandal and murder when her affection toward a young man is misinterpreted.

Date of release
1929-11-15
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (27)
Runtime
1h 2m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
Jacques Feyder

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $518K
  • Budget: $257K
  • Earned 2× its budget

The Kiss is a 1929 American synchronized sound drama film directed by Jacques Feyder, starring Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel, and Lew Ayres in his first feature film. The film has no audible dialogue but featured a synchronized musical score and sound effects. The soundtrack was recorded using the Western Electric Sound System sound-on-film process. The soundtrack was also transferred to discs for those theatres that were wired with sound-on-disc sound systems.

Production

During casting for The Kiss, Garbo recommended Nils Asther for the role as her lover André. Asther had been born in Denmark but, like Garbo, had grown up in Sweden, an association with the actress that only enhanced his reputation as "the male Greta Garbo" in the film industry and among movie fans. In addition, he had already costarred with her in two of MGM's recent film successes and was still under contract with the studio.

By early September 1929, The Kiss was already being filmed at MGM, although the studio had yet to announce publicly a title for the production. According to the trade paper The Film Daily, a dozen feature films were simultaneously under way at that time at MGM. All but one were "talkers". "The only silent picture being filmed", reported The Film Daily, "is Greta Garbo’s new untitled European romance now being directed by Jacques Feyder".

The visually striking Art Déco interior sets in The Kiss were designed by legendary MGM art director and production designer Cedric Gibbons. Gibbons' bold, high-fashion sets in the film were intended to emphasize the French style and serve as "vital elements" in the production, especially in a non-dialog offering like The Kiss, which had to compete at its release with many other motion pictures that featured the new "exciting" element of recorded…

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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