Watch The Single Standard For Free

Simply Perfect

Best movie ever!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The second of three silent features featuring Garbo released in 1929 while MGM scratched its head pondering how they were to promote her as an attraction in talkies; 'The Single Standard' was also her second feature in a row pairing her with fellow Swede Nils Asther.Garbo is introduced as All American party girl Arden Stuart, presumably loaded, but of whose life and means prior to the wild party in an enormous Art Deco mansion with which the film begins we learn nothing. Despite the provocative title - vaguely advanced at one point as some sort of feminist statement about the social constraints placed upon women - 'The Single Standard' swiftly turns into a standard Garbo vehicle in which after flirting with modernity in the form of motor rides at seventy m.p.h. and a dalliance with pugilist turned artist Asther she ultimately embraces respectability and parenthood with John Mack Brown for the sake of her cute little curly-haired moppet of a son.The name of director John S. Robertson isn't much recalled today, even by connoisseurs of silent cinema, but he does a good job here with the assistance of high-priced Metro talent like cameraman Oliver Marsh, art director Cedric Gibbons, costume designer Adrian and whoever was responsible for Garbo's various hairstyles which subtly changed as the film ran its course to reflect her developing emotional state.

This silent film finds Garbo playing a lady with rather bohemian morals for 1929. She sees that there is an unfair double-standard that allows men to cheat and have fun--but not women. So, she decides she, too, can play the field and ignore conventional morality--fair is fair. This is a novel idea and I agree that women and men should be equal--though instead, it might be nice if the men behaved a lot less randy--not women behaving slutty as well! But, that's really not the point of the film--at least not initially.Garbo meets an interesting man--a famous boxer AND painter (now THAT'S unusual!!). She is more than willing to bed this guy but he's off to explore the Amazon and tells her it wouldn't be right for her to come along with him. Why she then carries a torch for this guy is a bit hard to believe--they only spent a short time together AND if he was such a chauvinist that he didn't take her with him, why would she want him back later in the film--after she is married and has a child? Well, that is her plan--but, fortunately, but the end of the film she comes to her senses and her husband also does as well.Overall, an entertaining film but I take off at least a point because Garbo simply made too many 'woman with loose morals' pictures. Worth seeing, however, especially if you are a die-hard Garbo fiend.

Single Standard, The (1929) ** (out of 4)Outside of Greta Garbo, this silent film pretty much lives up to the "standard" mentioned in the title. In the film Garbo plays Arden Hewlett, a rich woman who believes that men and women should play by the same rules in terms of relationships. She doesn't have a problem with the boys running out on their wives and she expects the same. She eventually hooks up with a boxer (Nils Asther) but winds up with another man (Johnny Mack Brown) who she marries. Once married the boxer comes back into her life and wants her back. I'm sure this film was dated even by 1929 standards so it certainly doesn't play any better today. This isn't a horrible movie but at the same time everything in it is so bland that you can't help but be bored out of your mind. What's even worse is that the film lasts a short 73-minutes yet even that seems way too long. The only thing that really works here is the beauty of Garbo. She does a nice job in the role and she's easily believable as the "fun girl" every guy would want to be with. I thought Asther was also pretty good and what lively moments the film does have are due to the boat trip between his character and Garbo's. Brown isn't too bad but his role is so predictable that it comes off rather boring. Director Robertson really seems to be asleep at the wheel because there's no energy or life anywhere in the film. I'm not sure if the studio just made this production a quickie until they could find out what to do with Garbo and sound movies but in the end the film just doesn't work.

Garbo is a free-spirited debutante who becomes scandalous for first having an affair with her chauffeur, then artist (Asther), all before she settles for millionaire Brown. Irrational soap opera is enjoyable thanks to Garbo's luminescence. A silent film with original music score.