Every other man took you at your own price—nothing!

SUSAN LENOX (HER FALL AND RISE)

1931

Directed by Robert Z. Leonard

Written by Leon Gordon, Zelda Sears, Edith Fitzgerald, and Wanda Tuchock, as well as, in an uncredited capacity, something approaching half the staff of MGM (based on the novel by David Graham Phillips)

Spoilers: moderate

The Encyclopedia Brown: The room at the top of the stairs

INSPIRATION

1931

Directed by Clarence Brown

Written by Gene Markey (based on the novella Sappho by Alphonse Daudet)

Spoilers: moderate

The Encyclopedia Brown: Isn't there anyone whose memory is very dear—and sort of holy?

ROMANCE

1930

Directed by Clarence Brown

Written by Edwin Justus Mayer and Bess Meredyth (based on the play by Edward Sheldon)

Spoilers: moderate

The Encyclopedia Brown: Garbo talks

ANNA CHRISTIE

1930

Directed by Clarence Brown

Written by Frances Marion (based on the play by Eugene O'Neill)

Spoilers: moderate

A kiss goodbye

THE KISS

1929

Directed by Jacques Feyder

Written by Hanns Kraly and Marian Ainslee (based on the short story by George Saville)

Spoilers: moderate

Greta Garbo will never love you Johnny Mack Brown, accept it

THE SINGLE STANDARD

1929

Directed by John S. Robertson

Written by Josephine Lovett and Marian Ainslee (based on the novel by Adela Rogers St. John)

Spoilers: moderate (lot of redactions, though)

Tiger, tiger, burning bright, something something something night

WILD ORCHIDS

1929

Directed by Sidney Franklin

Written by Hanns Kraly, Ruth Cummings, Willis Goldbeck, and William Schayer (based on the novel Heat by John Colton)

Spoilers: moderate

The Encyclopedia Brown: She was the male of the species that is more fearless than mankind

A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS

1928

Directed by Clarence Brown

Written by Bess Meredyth, Marian Ainslee, and Ruth Cummings (based on the novel The Green Hat by Michael Arlen)

Spoilers: moderate

Feminine mystique

THE MYSTERIOUS LADY

1928

Directed by Fred Niblo

Written by Bess Meredyth, Frances Marion, Marian Ainslee, and Ruth Cummings (based on the novel War in the Dark by Ludwig Wolff)

Spoilers: moderate

Gilbert and Garbo in

LOVE

1927

Directed by Edmund Goulding

Written by Lorna Moon, Frances Marion, Marian Ainslee, and Ruth Cummings (based on the novel Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy)

Spoilers: saying there could be something to meaningfully spoil about this adaptation of Anna Karenina is a spoiler in itself, ain't it?

Garbo fucks

FLESH AND THE DEVIL

1927

Directed by Clarence Brown

Written by Benjamin Glazer and Marian Ainslee (based on the novel The Undying Past by Hermann Sudermann)

Spoilers: moderate

Evil woman

THE TEMPTRESS

1926

Directed by Fred Niblo and Mauritz Stiller

Written by Dorothy Farnum and Marian Ainslee (based on the novel A Land For All by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez)

Spoilers: moderate

On the other side of the water

TORRENT

1926

Directed by Monta Bell

Written by Dorothy Farnum, Katherine Hilliker, and H.H. Caldwell (based on the novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez)

Spoilers: moderate

Love is a stupid hat

NINOTCHKA

The corruption of purity by capitalism's false promises has never seemed so sweet as in Lubitsch's fantastic dialectical romcom.

1939
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch, Charles Brackett, and Ernst Lubitsch (based on the story by Melchior Lengyel)
With Greta Garbo (Nina "Ninotchka" Ivanovna Yakushova), Melvyn Douglas (Leon, Comte d'Algout), Ina Claire (Duchess Swana), Sig Ruman (Iranoff), Felix Bressart (Buljanoff), Alexander Granach (Kopalski), and Bela Lugosi (Rakonin)

Spoiler alert: moderate