Camille (1936)

The 1936 Camille was the second Hollywood adaptation of the 1848 novel The Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux Camélias) by Alexandre Dumas fils.

The movie is set in Paris in the 1840s. It is of course the story of a love affair between celebrated Parisian courtesan Marguerite Gautier and a young man, Armand Duval (Robert Taylor), whose problem is that he is not rich enough to afford her and not rich enough to defy his family by marrying her. He would like to marry her because he fears that her wild lifestyle is having a disastrous effect on her very precarious health.

There is going to be trouble with Armand’s family. His father (played by Lionel Barrymore) doesn’t mind if Armand wants to consort with courtesans but he wants him to be discreet and he certainly isn’t going to agree to a marriage. Had Armand belonged to an aristocratic family there would have been no problem. The aristocracy could treat conventional morality with contempt. But Armand’s bourgeois father is obsessed with respectability and dreads scandal.

A lot of the great actresses of the pre-code era had their careers blighted by the introduction of the Production Code in 1934. They just couldn’t flourish in the new squeaky-clean Code era. Jean Harlow being an obvious example. This was the case to some extent with Greta Garbo. She had some major hits after 1934 but some of the magic was gone.

Camille presented a challenge for MGM in 1936. The Dumas novel was based on the real-life story of one of the most famous prostitutes of the 19th century, Marie Duplessis. The heroine of the novel, like Marie Duplessis, is a courtesan but no matter how expensive she might be a courtesan is after all a prostitute. And if it’s not made clear that the heroine is a prostitute the story makes no sense at all.

The problem was that the Production Code had outlawed bad girls. Even if they suffered horrific punishment at the end it was incredibly difficult to make a movie about a bad girl.

That started to change in the early 40s as the Production Code was (in practice if not in theory) loosened a little, which made film noir possible. But in 1936 movies had to tread very very carefully indeed. And this is not just the story of a prostitute - it’s a very sympathetic story of a prostitute.

This movie solves the problem quite skilfully. It makes it very obvious that the heroine, Marguerite Gautier (Garbo), is a courtesan without ever coming right out and saying it. It relies on hints and on little exchanges that might be interpreted in an innocent way but are in fact clear indications of the way in which she makes her living. She is obviously being kept by the rich Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell). We even see an exchange of money. At one point the Baron gives her a very large sum of money, to spend on whatever takes her fancy. It is impossible to imagine a respectable woman accepting such a large cash gift. The only plausible explanation is that he is paying her for her services.

Marguerite exists in the demi-monde, the half-world of very expensive whores. She mixes with very rich men of the highest social class but her friends are clearly not the least bit respectable.

Armand is not a child. He is not at all concerned about Marguerite’s profession. All he knows is that he loves her.

Garbo is in fine form as a woman constantly veering between exaggerated gaiety and despair, between sincerity and frivolity, a woman who is reluctant to admit that she has fallen in love. Perhaps she is attracted by the prospect of emotional security but she is equally attracted by the frenetic pursuit of pleasure. Pleasure allows her to stop worrying about her health. Perhaps she would like to be respectable, but she doesn’t have a great deal of fondness for respectable people. It’s a complex role which Garbo carries off with ease.

Robert Taylor in the 1930s was generally dismissed as a mere pretty boy. As his matinee idol looks became more weather-beaten in the late 1940s his acting ability really began to blossom. He’s quite solid in Camille but he’s obviously still a bit tentative.

I have never liked Lionel Barrymore as an actor and I’m afraid I don’t like him here. Of course the character he’s playing is a loathsome self-righteous prig and that was something that Barrymore could do.

Henry Daniell as the Baron de Varville is superb. He gives the characters some depth. The Baron is selfish and arrogant and cynical but is able to regard himself, and life in general, with a certain amusement. He’s a rogue but we can’t help liking him for his lack of moralism and hypocrisy.

Marguerite and Armand are fated to misunderstand each. Marguerite does tell lies. That’s part of her profession. A whore is used to telling men what they want to hear. But when Marguerite does tell the truth Armand doesn’t believe her. They don’t really understand how much they love each other, and there is always the money problem. Armand does not have enough money to flout the social conventions. It’s an insanely romantic tale. Highly recommended.

I also highly recommend the visually stunning 1921 silent version, as well as the novel.

Love (1927)

Love (later retitled Anna Karenina) is an important movie in Greta Garbo’s filmography. She got to make this movie despite Louis B. Mayer’s attempt to destroy her career. She foiled that attempt by going over Mayer’s head to the owners of MGM. Love established Garbo as a star with the clout to pick her own projects, at least to some extent.

This movie also saw her moving away from her early vamp roles. This is the Garbo who became a legend - playing heroines who sacrifice everything for love.

Up to a point it follows Tolstoy’s novel, in a very superficial way. It’s a very long novel turned into a rather short film. The movie turns a complex story into a straightforward story of star-crossed lovers.

The setting is St Petersburg. Anna Karenina (Garbo) is married to the rich powerful Senator Karenin. She meets a handsome young Guards officer, Vronsky (John Gilbert). They are both stranded in a storm. They have to stay overnight in an inn. Nothing happens between them, but everything happens between them. The romantic/sexual fuse has been lit. There’s nothing either of them can do about it.

The first scene between Garbo and Gilbert is very long and it’s crucial. It’s a complex scene with all sorts of romantic and sexual approaches and hesitations and rebuffs. It’s the beginning of the obsessive love that the movie is all about. It’s done without any title cards. Garbo and Gilbert don’t need any help from title cards. We get the message.

The affair becomes more tempestuous. The scandal grows.

Anna’s problem is that she has a son. She will have to choose between Vronsky and her son. It is an impossible choice. As she tells Vronsky, she loves them both infinitely. But she will have to choose.

And eventually Anna’s husband will force her hand.

The film was shot with two radically different endings. Tragically the Warner Archive DVD includes only one of the endings and it’s a contrived and totally unsatisfactory ending which makes nonsense of the whole movie. This was an alternative ending for the benefit of exhibitors too afraid to risk screening a movie with anything other than a conventional happy ending. It’s very very difficult to judge this movie without being able to see the original ending.

There are some nuances which a lot of viewers today might miss. Anna’s husband is not a mere monster. He is not entirely unreasonable. He lays his cards on the table for Anna. He will turn a blind eye to her affair with Vronsky as long as she is very discreet. He will not tolerate a public scandal, or being publicly humiliated. Which is reasonable enough. But he also warns her that there will be consequences if she is not discreet. The problem is that Anna and Vronsky are not discreet.

This is Garbo in magnificent form as a woman tortured by love. John Gilbert is excellent. It’s the extraordinary chemistry between Garbo and John Gilbert that makes the 1927 silent version worth seeing.

The tragedy is that the moment they meet Anna and Vronsky are no longer in control. They both know that their love will end in disaster. It’s not they they know this and go ahead anyway. They have no choice. This is a love that cannot be denied. They have poured the wine and they will have to drink it.

Garbo also starred in a later sound version (in 1935) and that version is superior to the silent version.

Without seeing that original ending I honestly cannot say how good this movie really is, but Love is worth seeing for Garbo and Gilbert.

Grand Hotel (1932)

Grand Hotel is a 1932 MGM all-star extravaganza melodrama, but this is not like some of those later all-star movies that actually featured fading stars reduced to doing character parts. Here we have major stars who were either at their peak or rising rapidly - Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore.

The setting is the opulent and glamorous Grand Hotel in Berlin. This is Berlin in the age of Weimar Republic decadence. We get the stories of various guests and they’re a wildly assorted bunch.

Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) is a prima ballerina whose life is falling apart. She feels that her career is in decline. She is right, although that’s largely the result of her own self-doubts, unpredictability and self-destructiveness. She is also no longer sure that her career matters to her. She wants love. She will find love, very unexpectedly.

She finds love in the person of Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore).

The Baron is irresponsible and penniless and he is a jewel thief. He is a rogue, but a loveable rogue. He plans to steal Grusinskaya’s priceless pearl necklace. Instead she steals his heart!

Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) is a dying businessman who wants to have one last adventure and the Grand Hotel seems like the place to be.

He works for, or did work for, General Director Preysing. Preysing (Wallace Beery) is a vulgar but very rich business tycoon on the verge of ruin. He might be vulgar and ruthless but he is honest. That has been his downfall. Now he has succumbed to the temptation to be less than frank with his business partners. Preysing is in the midst of delicate merger negotiations. He has hired a stenographer. A very pretty young stenographer.

The stenographer is Miss Flaemm (Joan Crawford). Her friends call her Flaemmchen.

It was an inspired decision to cast Garbo and Crawford. They give radically different performances, each actress playing to her own strengths. Garbo gives one of her most extravagant performances. She is beautiful, moody, mysterious, tragic, tortured, neurotic and ten times larger than life. Grusinskaya is not a star. She is a Star. She is a tortured artistic genius. Garbo goes way over the top but she knows what she’s doing. This is melodrama. Garbo understood melodrama. She is beautiful and sexy in a very European way.

Joan Crawford is bold, brassy, sassy and sexy in a very American way. The contrast between two totally different acting approaches works because of the kind of movie this is. The characters are all very different people and they have very different stories. Any kind of story can happen in the Grand Hotel. The stories of some of these people will play out as tragedy, some as melodrama, some as romance, some as farce.

John Barrymore is terrific. He could certainly be a ham but in this movie his performance is restrained, subtle and controlled. In 1932 he was still a huge star and a very handsome man.

You can see why Grusinskaya falls head over heels in love with him. The Baron is a scoundrel but he’s charming, sensitive and romantic and he has a doomed tragic vibe that would excite any woman - Grusinskaya knows that her love can save him. And perhaps it can. Anything is possible in the Grand Hotel. The chemistry between John Barrymore and Garbo is extraordinary.

There is plenty of MGM gloss but it’s totally appropriate. Edmund Goulding as director does a very stylish job which makes the most of some wonderful Art Deco-inspired sets by Cedric Gibbons. And you can’t go wrong with Bill Daniels as your cinematographer.

The most pre-code element in the movie is the relationship between Preysing and Flaemmchen. He wants her to go to England with him, as his secretary. It is very clear that most of her duties will be performed in the bedroom. Flaemmchen understands this, and accepts the offer even though he’s a married man. He gets her a room in the Grand Hotel. We are left in no doubt that he expects her to share a bad with him and that she is willing to do so. There is no suggestion that this makes her a bad woman. A girl has to eat.

The characters have their own stories which gradually intersect.

The most surprising thing about this movie is that while it’s glossy it’s not frothy. It has a slightly dark and cynical edge. And there are no storybook happy endings for any of the main characters. Most survive, but they will be left with emotional scars.

The characters have more depth than you expect, and the script has more substance than you might expect. Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and John Barrymore give top-notch performances.

Grand Hotel was a triumph for MGM, cleaning up at the box office and winning the Best Picture Oscar. This is stylish entertainment that has more than mere gloss going for it. Highly recommended.

The Single Standard (1929)

When people talk about Greta Garbo’s great movies they usually don’t mention her very late (1929) silent movie The Single Standard. Even when people focus on her silent films this one doesn’t get much attention. It was directed by John S. Robertson, from a novel by Adela Rogers St. Johns.

Arden (Greta Garbo) obviously belongs to the wealthy fashionable set. This was 1929 so this is a pre-Great Depression movie. This is still the Jazz Age, the Age of the Flapper.

Arden is rather fond of her handsome hunky chauffeur. One night she decides on a midnight drive, just her and the chauffeur. Arden is in the driver’s seat, and this is clearly a signal that Arden always likes to be in the driver’s seat in life. They find a romantic spot down by the lake. Just the two of them. They kiss. The movie doesn’t show us what happens next but I think it’s reasonable to assume that it’s what you would expect to happen between a healthy red-blooded young man and a healthy red-blooded young woman in a romantic setting in the moonlight.

Unpleasant consequences could probably have been foreseen, but this moonlight tryst has totally disastrous consequences.

There is of course a major class issue here. Women of Arden’s social class are not expected to offer their favours to servants.

Arden then meets Packy Cannon (Nils Asther). He’s a prize-fighter turned artist. He gives a demonstration of his pugilistic skills. Arden is impressed. Packy is artistic and very manly. He’s her sort of man. Romance is clearly going to blossom.

We’ve already figured out that Arden is a Modern Woman. She wants to lead a life of honesty and freedom. Which for her includes sexual freedom. We also know that she likes men, with a preference for masculine men. Arden believes that she has the right to make her own decisions where men are concerned.

Romance does indeed blossom. Arden and Packy sail off into the sunset together on Packy’s yacht. Things don’t quite work out and another situation arises which could potentially end as disastrously as Arden’s midnight cavortings with the chauffeur.

The title might tempt one to think that this movie was intended as an attack on the supposed “double standard” - the idea that women were held to a different moral standard compared to men. I am however not convinced that that makes sense in relation to this movie. In the context of this movie there really is only a single standard - scandal must be avoided. Morality doesn’t matter. Social approval is what matters.

Of course that is still true today. The things that bring social approval and social disapproval have changed, but social conformity still matters more than morality. Whatever the prevailing societal mores might be, however much they may change, conformity to those mores will still be ruthlessly enforced.

Arden’s mistake, which had nothing very much to do with her being a woman, was to assume that society will tolerate those who believe they have the right to make their own decisions. That has never been the case and never will be the case. This movie is really not dated at all.

We don’t think of silent movies as pre-code movies but of course a movie made in 1929 is indeed a pre-code movie, and The Single Standard feels very very pre-code. It is strongly implied that Arden and the chauffeur are lovers. It is made pretty explicit that Arden and Packy are lovers. It’s also made very clear that the audience is not meant to condemn any of these people for immorality. In fact the message of the movie appears to be that if love is on offer you should grab it. The complications that ensue for these people are not actually caused by sexual wickedness. In fact things would have worked out much more satisfactorily for everyone had Arden and Packy continued with their illicit love affair.

The Single Standard is more interesting than its reputation would suggest and I recommend it highly. And of course Garbo is terrific.

Sadly there’s a great deal of print damage evident in the Warner Archive DVD transfer but with silent movies we always have to be grateful that they have survived at all.

The Painted Veil (1934)

The Painted Veil is a Greta Garbo romantic melodrama released by MGM in November 1934. It was directed by Richard Boleslawski. This was her first movie made under the radically changed circumstances brought about by the draconian Production Code, something that is very evident throughout the film.

Katrin (Greta Garbo) lives with her family in a town in Austria. Her younger sister is about to be married. Her parents worry that Katrin will never marry. There are suitable young men but they never seem to please her. Not being married has never worried her but now, with her sister married, she is worried by the prospect of loneliness.

That may be why she accepts a proposal of marriage from Walter Fane (Herbert Marshall). She doesn’t love him but he’s a good man and would make a good husband. Perhaps love isn’t everything.

Then she meets diplomat Jack Townsend (George Brent). Walter is worthy but dull. No woman could be excited by Walter. Jack is a different matter. He’s amusing, cheerful, charming, handsome and a woman could very definitely be excited by him. Katrin has found love at last. She has realised that love really is everything. Unfortunately she has already married Walter.

She knows she never did love Walter. She resists the temptation offered by Jack, at least at first. This being a movie made under the Production Code it’s very coy about whether they actually sleep together. They obviously do, but this has to be conveyed obliquely. Of course under the Production Code just thinking about committing adultery was proof of moral wickedness.

Walter is set to return to China where he’s a noble self-sacrificing doctor. He will be in the middle of a cholera epidemic. It would be madness for Katrin to accompany him and she has no intention of doing so and no reasonable person would expect her to.

Walter however has found out about her affair with Jack. He insists that Katrin accompany him to China. Katrin assumes that he intends this to be a death sentence for her and she’s undoubtedly correct.

The situation in China is chaotic. Walter has become even more noble and self-sacrificing. It is possible that for him it is a kind of deliberate suicide.

You know exactly how this tale is going to end but in fact it plays out in a manner that is not quite what you might have expected.

It is of course possible that this project was conceived prior to the Code. It does give a slight impression that it may originally have been intended to be a very different movie.

The Production Code Authority didn’t just ban certain kinds of content. They laid down strict instructions on how stories were to be told, they mandated sweeping script changes and radical changes to the ways in which characters were to be portrayed. As a result while Garbo is good she is forced to spend an inordinate amount of time wallowing in self-loathing, shame and guilt.

Herbert Marshall is awful but the problem is the way his character is written rather than any weaknesses in his acting. No actor could have made Walter anything but loathsome and self-righteous.

George Brent doesn’t get to do much apart from being charming.

Walter Oland is quite impressive as General Yu, the only character in the movie who is more than a cliché. He’s not a particularly good man but he’s not a bad man. He’s doing his best.

The movie looks good and Garbo gets to wear a couple of amazing outfits.

The Painted Veil was based on a Somerset Maugham story and adapting any of his stories during the dark days of the Production Code was a challenge. He wrote stories for grown-ups.

This movie has plenty of problems. Almost certainly as a result of the Code both Walter and Jack come across as totally unconvincing characters who do things because the Code said they had to do such things. Garbo is the reason to watch this movie. Somehow, in her inimitable and subtle way, she persuades us to believe in Katrin and to care about her. Recommended, purely because of Garbo.

The Warner Archive DVD looks reasonably good.

The Temptress (1926)

The Temptress is one of Greta Garbo’s very early MGM silent pictures. It was released in 1926.

She was already a rising star (The Temptress would be a major box-office success) but was not to become what would later be called a superstar until the release of Flesh and the Devil a year later.

At this stage Garbo was rather frustrated at the course her American career was taking. MGM seemed to see her as another vamp. Garbo was not comfortable with this. She was not interested in playing women who were heartless predators. She felt she would achieve more playing women who experienced intense emotions. She was of course correct. She could play bad girls and dangerous women, but she was at her best when they were more than mere vamps. And she proved to be superb at playing women who suffer for love.

Elena (Garbo) meets the handsome dashing Manuel Robledo (Antonio Moreno) at a masquerade ball in Paris. He has returned to Paris after a period trying to make his fortune in the Argentine. He is captivated by her mystery and her beauty. She tells him that she is madly in love with him, and there is no other man in her life.

Disillusionment follows for Robledo when he discovers that Elena is married, to the Marquis de Torre Bianca (Armand Kaliz). She assures Robledo that this doesn’t matter, that she will go way with him anyway. Robledo is shocked at the idea. He is shocked that he has fallen for a wicked temptress.

It soon becomes apparent that Elena has had quite a career as a seductress. Men have ruined themselves for her. At least one was driven to suicide.

Robledo decides to return to Argentina, to escape the wickedness of Paris, and mostly to escape the wickedness of Elena.

He is pleased when his old friend the Marquis de Torre Bianca shows up in the Argentine. He is not so pleased that de Torre Bianca has brought his wife with him - the temptress herself. The Argentine is a place where a man can make a new start, but not with a woman like Elena around.

Robledo has problems with the notorious Manos Duras (Roy D’Arcy), the leader of a large band of what are in practice bandits and trouble-makers. When Manos Duras catches sight of Elena you know there will be problems.

Pretty soon men are making fools of themselves over Elena, and fighting over her. This excites and amuses her. Robledo is determined to have nothing to do with her, but it’s not easy to keep away from such a woman. More trouble is sure to follow, and it does.

The question is whether Elena really is wicked or not. She certainly has a way of leading men to their doom, but they want to be led. There are suggestions that Elena is to some extent a victim. Her effete husband was hiring her out to a rich banker in order to finance his gambling debts. The men in her life have certainly not always behaved honourably, and sometimes perhaps they deserved their fates. Elena’s true nature remains enigmatic. Perhaps she wants to reform, and perhaps she doesn’t.

The Temptress was set to be directed by Garbo’s mentor Mauritz Stiller, whom she idolised. Stiller was one of the greats of the early Swedish film industry. He had directed her in Gösta Berlings Saga in Sweden in 1924. Unfortunately Stiller clashed with the MGM hierarchy and was fired from The Temptress which was completed by Fred Niblo.

There’s an extraordinary deep-focus tracking shot early on in which the camera pulls away to reveal guests sitting at an incredibly long table, a shot very reminiscent of shots in Citizen Kane, except that it was done in The Temptress fifteen years before Citizen Kane. It would be tempting to think that some of the other rather bold shots in this movie may have been Stiller’s work but in fact not a single frame shot by Stiller remained in the finished film. Stiller had shot a lot of footage but Niblo reshot every single scene.

It has to be said that Niblo did a fine job, and having William H. Daniels as cinematographer helped a good deal. Right from the start Bill Daniels knew how to photograph Garbo. He makes her look stunning, and seductive, and mysterious.

This is unabashed melodrama but it’s a beautifully crafted film and Garbo already had very obvious star quality. This is fine entertainment and it’s highly recommended.

This movie is included in the Garbo Silents two-disc set which was bundled with the wonderful Warner Garbo Signature Collection DVD boxed set. The Temptress looks pretty good and the print includes some tinted scenes (I just love the tinting in silent movies).

The studio felt that the ending would work for sophisticated big city audiences but that less sophisticated audiences would require a lot more sugar coating so they filmed an atrocious alternate ending which is included as an extra.

I’ve reviewed one of Mauritz Stiller early Swedish movies, the delightfully wicked and outrageously immoral Erotikon (1920).

Anna Christie (German-language version, 1930)

Anna Christie was Greta Garbo’s first talkie and it was in fact shot twice simultaneously, once in English and once in German for the German market (where MGM quite reasonably expected it to do very well). Garbo is in both versions but the supporting casts are different and the two versions had different directors. Clarence Brown directed the English-language version while Jacques Feyder directed the German version. And different writers - Walter Hasenclever wrote the dialogue for the German version and Frank Reicher wrote the German screenplay.

The English-language version doesn’t get a lot of love, even from Garbo fans. It was based on Eugene O’Neill’s play and it’s very very stagey. It was a very odd choice on MGM's part for Garbo's debut in talkies. There are those who think that the German-language version is the better movie - more daring, slightly more dynamic and with a better performance from Garbo. It’s the German version we are concerned with in this review.

The movie begins with a lengthy opening sequence in which a broken-down old sailor, Chris Christopherson (Hans Junkermann) and his equally broken-down mistress Marthy (Salka Viertel) are getting quietly plastered in a waterfront bar. Chris has received a letter from his daughter Anna whom he hasn’t seen for fifteen years. She’s coming to see him. Marthy persuades Chris to go to the restaurant next door to get some food in his stomach to sober him up a bit, Chris departs, and Garbo makes her famous entrance.

Chris had abandoned his family years earlier. He has convinced himself that Anna has had an idyllic childhood on a farm. He has no idea that she is a prostitute.

Chris is captain of a barge and he lives aboard. Anna moves in with him. Chris has grown to hate the sea. He is haunted by the fear that Anna will marry a sailor. Anna falls in love with the sea.

A fierce storm blows up and Chris rescues a shipwrecked sailor, Matt Burke (Theo Shall). Matt takes a liking to Anna. Like Chris he is convinced that Anna is a good decent girl. Matt despises whores.

Anna for her part has always hated men. During that supposedly idyllic childhood on the farm she was raped by the farmer’s son. Matt is the first man she has ever liked. And she slowly realises that she has fallen in love with him. For his part matt has decided that Anna is the girl he will marry.

The problem of course is that Anna is tortured by the idea that she is deceiving Matt. She has allowed him to build up a fantasy about her, a fantasy in which she is a sweet innocent virgin. She would obviously be a fool to tell him that she’s a whore but if she doesn’t tell him and they get married she will always feel guilty.

The German version, like the English version, is very stagebound. This was of course the very early days of talkies when the initial technical problems involved with sound technology imposed serious limitations on directors. It wasn’t easy to introduce movement into shots. It was easier to stick to a few basic camera setups. In this case there is the added problem that almost all the action takes place on a handful of sets, and they’re not exactly visually impressive sets. It’s not easy to make a sleazy waterfront bar or the cabin of a coal barge visually stunning.

It’s all very claustrophobic. That suits the content but it doesn’t make for exciting viewing.

It’s also, being essentially a filmed play, a story told mostly through dialogue rather than by visual means. Anna Christie never really manages to feel cinematic.

Jacques Feyder was a sound choice as director. He had directed Garbo in her last silent film, the stylish and very underrated The Kiss, a year earlier.

You have to bear in mind that it wasn’t just MGM who were worried how audiences would respond to Garbo’s voice. Garbo herself had no idea whether audiences would go for her Swedish accent (in fact audiences decided that her voice was sexy and exotic). She was almost certainly a bit nervous shooting the English-language version. On the other hand she was extremely comfortable speaking in German so she could focus more on her acting than on her voice. She does seem generally more at ease here than in the English version.

There can be no complaints abut the casting of the German-language version. Hans Junkermann as Chris, Theo Shall as Matt and Salka Viertel as Marthy are all good. Theo Shall is particularly good.

Garbo is excellent. It’s not a glamorous role but she manages to look terrific anyway while still being totally convincing as a very unglamorous, confused rather embittered woman.

The sea is clearly meant to have some deep symbolic significance. I guess it’s supposed to represent fate.

As for pre-code content, it’s made absolutely explicit that Anna is a prostitute. There’s anything aspect to the movie that is very very pre-code but I can’t reveal what it is without revealing spoilers. But this German version is very very obviously a pre-code movie.

The German version (with English subtitles) is included as an extra on the Warner Home Video DVD that was included in their superb Garbo boxed set some years ago. The print was obviously not in very good shape but it’s quite watchable and sadly it seems unlikely that anyone is ever going to bother doing a proper restoration.

Anna Christie is a movie that never escapes from its stage origins and it’s much too stagey and static and dialogue-heavy. It’s rather stodgy. Worth seeing for the fact that the story is told in such an overtly pre-code way, and for Garbo.

Ninotchka (1939)

Ninotchka was Greta Garbo’s second-last film, and her first real comedy. It was a hit and could have launched her into a new phase of her career but sadly that was not to be. Her final film, the very underrated Two-Faced Woman, unfortunately failed to repeat the commercial success of Ninotchka and she decided to call it a day. She presumably felt it was better to remain a legend than to risk seeing a career slowly peter out, and perhaps she was right.

I saw Ninotchka many years ago but when I was young I was as serious and humourless as Ninotchka herself is in the early part of the film so I wasn’t able to appreciate it. I’ve put off seeing it again because of Billy Wilder’s involvement in it as co-writer - I don’t care for Wilder’s brand of comedy in general. But since it was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, whom I admire, and starred Garbo, whom I adore, I felt it was time to take another look at this one.



The Soviet government needs money badly so they decide to sell some of the jewels that they had stolen from aristocrats after the Revolution. In this case the jewels had belonged to a certain grand duchess (played by Ina Claire) who happens to be very much alive and living in Paris. When three Soviet apparatchiks arrive in Paris to sell her jewels she gets wind of it and launches a court case to block the sale, arguing (correctly of course) that the jewels are stolen. Her boyfriend, a shiftless and penniless but charming French count named Leon (Melvyn Douglas), offers a deal to the three hapless Soviets. Negotiations drag on and a special envoy is dispatched from Moscow to expedite matters. The envoy is Ninotchka (Greta Garbo).

Ninotchka takes life very seriously indeed. She is a dedicated communist with no time for frivolities but Leon figures that although she might be a Bolshevik she’s still a woman and his charm has never failed him yet.



Both Leon and Ninotchka find themselves in unfamiliar territory. Leon finds that what started out as his usual style of self-serving flirtation is starting to turn into love. And Ninotchka discovers there’s more to life than Five Year Plans and compiling statistics on tractor production. She discovers champagne, and evening dresses, and dancing, and having fun. And she discovers that she is not immune to decadent western weaknesses like falling madly in love with feckless but handsome and charming Frenchmen.

Her three Soviet comrades have discovered the joys of Paris as well. They’ve installed themselves in the Royal Suite in a fashionable hotel and are enjoying the capitalist high life. Instead of negotiating for the sale of the jewels they’re getting drunk and chasing pretty Parisian girls.



The grand duchess not only wants her jewels back, she also wants her French toyboy back. She wants to see Ninotchka back in Moscow, as soon as possible. Especially since Leon seems intent on marrying his beautiful Bolshevik sweetheart.

The humour is perhaps not as subtle as you might expect from Lubitsch, but this is a very funny film. Much of the humour comes from the antics of the three hapless but good-natured comrades who are finding that capitalism is much more fun than communism, and that being able to say what you like without the fear of being shipped off to a labour camp in Siberia is rather appealling as well.



Melvyn Douglas is very good but the success of the movie depends on Garbo and she proves to be a gifted comedienne (as she demonstrated again in Two-Faced Woman). It’s a slyly self-mocking performance and it’s a delight. I’d venture to say that this movie is much funnier if you’re familiar with her earlier movies and with her established image as the perennially tragic doomed woman who sacrifices everything for love. Garbo was cast very much against type in this movie and she has a great time making fun of her very serious image.

Look out for Bela Lugosi’s cameo as a particularly dour commissar.

This movie makes an interesting contrast with the screwball comedies that were so popular at the time. The Lubitsch approach to comedy was far more sophisticated and this is definitely not screwball comedy (in contrast to Two-Faced Woman which is pure screwball comedy).



Ninotchka is also a biting satire on communism, and it finds its target with unerring accuracy. The humour is at times quite black, such as Ninotchka’s remark that the show trials are going very well in Moscow and there will soon be fewer but better Russians. The humourlessness of Marxism is mocked but the movie also very effectively pinpoints the dehumanising effects of political terror. It is a plea for humanity and for love and for fun as being far more important than blind adherence to ideology. As a political satire it is infinitely superior to Charlie Chaplin’s grossly overrated The Great Dictator made a year later. It’s also far more courageous, given the appeal of leftist ideologies in Hollywood. It was banned in Russia, which simply serves to demonstrate that the comrades really were as humourless as the movie shows them to be.

Ninotchka is highly recommended and the Warner Home Video DVD looks terrific.

Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)

Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) is a movie that does not seem to be highly regarded today either by Greta Garbo’s fans or by Clark Gable’s. In fact this 1931 MGM movie doesn’t seem to be highly regarded by anyone which is a pity. Perhaps the problem is that it’s pure melodrama and we live in an age that finds melodrama unsettling without a hefty dose of irony. The opening sequences are an object lesson in succinct story-telling.

A woman in a very conservative Swedish immigrant community in the US dies giving birth to a illegitimate child. The child, Helga (Greta Garbo), is raised by her brother-in-law. He does his duty by her but cannot show her any love, being ashamed of the circumstances of her birth. He arranges a marriage for her but, repelled by the drunken advances of a man she does not love, she runs away before the marriage.

She ends up hiding out in the barn of a neighbour in the middle of a rainstorm. He’s an engineer named Rodney Spencer (Clark Gable) and he’s like no-one she has met before. He’s cheerful, good-natured and kind and it’s obvious they’re going to fall madly in love. But fate steps in. Rodney has to go to Chicago and while he’s away her brother-in-law and he intended husband turn up. She flees, and ends up joining a travelling carnival (I warned you this was pure melodrama).

Rodney sets off in search of her but unfortunately she’s spent the night with the manager of the carnival. She didn’t really have a choice as her husband-to-be turned up again and it was the only way to persuade the manager to hide her but Rodney isn’t very understanding and their relationship seems to have encountered an insurmountable obstacle.

Helga decides that if Rodney thinks she’s a whore then she’ll be a whore. A very successful one. She re-invents herself as Susan Lenox and becomes a wealthy and sought-after courtesan. She is destined to cross paths with Rodney again however and it’s obvious that their love is a strong as ever even if it’s turned to hate. They realise too late that the strength of their hate is simply a measure of the strength of their love. Rodney embarks on a course of self-destruction, but Helga/Susan cannot forget him. Somehow she will find him again, even if she has to scour every low waterfront dive in the country. You cannot fight a love like this.

Garbo and Gable, unexpectedly, generate a very real if unconventional chemistry. They’re both stubborn but sympathetic characters. Gable has plenty of boyish charm and although it’s a little odd to see Gable as a champion of the old-fashioned virtues of fidelity his performance is quite successful.

Garbo plays a typical Garbo heroine, a woman for whom nothing matters except love. Even while selling herself to other men she never forgets Rodney. 

Robert Z. Leonard isn’t renowned as the most stylish of directors but he and cinematographer William H. Daniels (who photographed most of Garbo’s movies) do a fine job with the use of light and shadow especially in the early stages of the film. Telling the story of Helga’s childhood entirely as a kind of shadowplay is a nice touch, reinforcing the idea that she has never had her own life.

You have to accept that this movie obeys the rules of melodrama, so criticising the use of coincidence and the fact that a travelling carnival just happens to come along right when the heroine needs one is missing the point. It’s all gloriously romantic, a product of an age that still understood such things.

Highly recommended. The Warner Archive DVD-R is a rather nice transfer.

The Kiss (1929)

The Kiss was Greta Garbo’s final silent movie. Actually it’s a hybrid, since it has a soundtrack that includes music and sound effects, but no dialogue.

For some reason MGM had convinced themselves that they were going to have a problem with Garbo’s voice in talking pictures. In fact of course her voice turned out to be an asset - not only did she have a fine speaking voice but she had an accent that was exotic and sexy and that complemented her onscreen image perfectly.

The Kiss was helmed by Jacques Feyder, who would go on to direct her first talking picture, Anna Christie. It’s a romantic melodrama and it’s a classic Garbo picture - she plays a woman for whom love is everything.



Irene Guarry (Garbo) is married to a middle-aged industrialist, Charles Guarry. She’s been having an affair with André Dubail (Conrad Nagel) but the lovers have decided they must break it off.

Irene has also attracted the attention of Pierre Lassalle, the 18-year-old son of a friend and business partner of her husband’s. Irene considers him to be a mere boy but she is reluctant to hurt him and assumes that he will soon get over his infatuation. He’s a harmless young man and his belief that he is in love with her is the sort of thing that boys of his age do. She is after all a very beautiful and very sophisticated older woman, and he’s lucky enough to have chosen a woman who is willing to humour him while taking care to ensure he doesn’t get hurt.



Unfortunately her calculations are upset when a harmless incident is misinterpreted. She has agreed to give young Pierre a photograph of herself and when he calls at her house she allows him to kiss her. This is the fateful kiss of the movie’s title, fateful because at that exact moment her husband arrives home and flies into a jealous rage. The upshot of this is that her husband ends up dead, the victim of a gunshot wound.

Irene is accused of murder and stands trial. But what really happened at her home on that fatal night?



Lew Ayres, soon to become a major star, plays the naïve but well-meaning Pierre Lassalle. Conrad Nagel is Irene’s lover, André. Both give performances that are effective and, by the standards of silent movies, restrained and lacking in the exaggerated qualities that so many people find off-putting in silent cinema. Garbo of course was always naturalistic in her performances. The understated acting makes this a good movie for anyone new to the attractions of silent film.

There are some nice art deco-influenced interiors. William H. Daniels became more or less Garbo’s personal cinematographer, working on no less than twenty-one of her films. He always knew exactly how to photograph her and she always trusted him implicitly. It was one of the great partnerships between a cinematographer and a star and it’s one of the strengths of this movie.



The Warner Archive DVD-R look reasonably good but it appears to be the same severely truncated print that has been shown on TCM. It runs for just 62 minutes whereas the original film (according to the IMDb) ran for 89 minutes, and it feels like a movie that has been savagely cut. One assumes however that this is the only cut of the movie that has survived. It’s not a great print by any mean but it’s watchable.

This is one of Garbo’s more overlooked movies and it’s well worth a look.