A Woman of Affairs

A Woman of Affairs features Garbo in one of her finest performances and carries a feminist punch that was lost altogether in later Hollywood romances. In this “lost generation” story, written by Bess Meredyth based on Michael Arlen’s novel The Green Hat, Garbo plays an English aristocrat who acts out with calculated recklessness. Arlen’s book was so hot that the characters’ names, as well as some choice elements of the story, were changed to sidestep the censors. But the film remains quite complex in its relationships, with John Gilbert as the love interest and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as Garbo’s wastrel brother.