When lifelong best friends Leo and Ulrich return home after completing their military training, Leo meets the stunning Felicitas at a railway station and is mesmerized by her beauty. A scandal follows, for which Leo is sent away. Returning home three years later, he discovers that much has changed.

Flesh and the Devil is about passion; the brilliance and the darkness, the staggering joy and overwhelming pain it creates and how it simply crowds everything else out. It’s also about an up-and-coming star whose onscreen eroticism was un-censorable and a matinee idol at his peak recreating onscreen what they felt for each other in private. While the story centers on the friendship between 2 lifelong friends (which veers dangerously close to homoerotic friendship at times), it’s when Garbo, as the ultimate proto femme fatale, arrives on the scene that the film’s heartbeat begins to race. Steering toward the scandalously sacrilegious at times, it takes its passionate eroticism to the fatal limit of what Hollywood could accept in an adulterous relationship. With the gorgeous cinematography by William Daniels, Flesh and the Devil is a treat for all senses. Bring a date. -TORONTO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL

Featuring live accompaniment by Jordan Klapman. 

This screening is part of Flesh & The Devil: a film series exploring the scandalous, controversial, erotic and exotic films of the 1920s. Presented by Toronto Silent Film Festival.

Doors Open 30 Minutes Before Showtime.