THE GARDEN OF EDEN (1928)

Special Features: New 4K Restoration | Introduction by film historian Farran Smith Nehme | Live musical accompaniment by Makia Matsumura

This sly, sexy romantic comedy follows wide-eyed Toni (silent star Corinne Griffith), a naïve Viennese pretzel baker who leaps at the chance to audition for the opera, only to discover the ad is a front. Upon arriving in Budapest, she learns the nightclub madam (Maude George) is recruiting girls not for the operatic stage but for more dubious nightclub “entertainments.” Toni’s disastrous debut — complete with a flustered performance and a lecherous aristocrat (Lowell Sherman) who mistakes her for part of the evening’s amusements — sends her fleeing in comic panic. She and a girlfriend escape to the Hotel Eden on the French Riviera, where a new romance blossoms between Toni and a charming rich young man (Charles Ray). But her scandalous past is not far behind — and it all comes crashing back in high screwball fashion. Written by Ernst Lubitsch’s frequent collaborator Hanns Kräly and directed by Oscar®-winner Lewis Milestone, THE GARDEN OF EDEN might just be the best Lubitsch film Lubitsch never made. With opulent sets by William Cameron Menzies, this late silent gem dazzles in a gorgeous new 2025 4K restoration from the San Francisco Film Preserve. DIR/PROD Lewis Milestone; SCR Hanns Kräly, from the play by Rudolph Bernauer, Rudolf Österreicher and Avery Hopwood. U.S., 1928, b&w, 79 min. NOT RATED

New 4K restoration from the San Francisco Film Preserve.

Also part of the 2025 Silent Cinema Showcase.

Run Time: 88 Minutes

Opening Date: Saturday, April 02, 2016

Genre: Comedy-drama

View Series Page