Greta Garbo

  • Anna Christie (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) I really tried to stay interested in Anna Christie, but sometimes, the gap between what a film has to offer and what we’re willing to give is just too great. It doesn’t help that I have no specific fascination with Greta Garbo, as much of the initial hoopla about the film (and one of its distinctions to this day) was “Garbo Speaks”—the first sound film of one of the studio’s biggest silent film stars. The plot, adapted from a theatrical play by Eugene O’Neill, has to do with the protagonist having a dark past that she has difficulty sharing with her new fiancé. But Garbo is not that exciting a performer—she does fine, but doesn’t bring much compared to other actresses. Marie Dressler is more fun (in a grating way) as an older woman with coarser dialogue. Much of Anna Christie’s lack of interest comes from its early sound technique—while a prestige production at the time, it’s a rough film nowadays—although I was surprised to find a few complex camera movements so early in sound film history. Still, much of the story has lost its shock value (“Fiancé, I worked in a brothel for a few years” is still a dramatic plot device, but not what it was back in 1930) and the film has been technically surpassed many times over since then. Anna Christie is more noteworthy for what it represented upon release than for straight-up viewing pleasure right now.

  • Garbo Talks (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2021) Classic movie fans may get an extra kick out of Garbo Talks, a slight comedy that has its protagonist frantically tracking down Greta Garbo in early-1980s New York City as a favour to his terminally ill mother. Much of the film hinges on Garbo’s famous reclusiveness, as she left acting in 1941 at the age of 35 (after twenty years in the business) and lived a private life until her death in 1990. By the time Garbo Talks was made, she had become this enigmatic Manhattan figure, sometimes seen but rarely heard. It’s in this situation that our protagonist (a likable but otherwise bland Ron Silver) starts acting like a detective, trying to find Garbo in order to relay to her his mother’s dying wish to meet her. There are a few low-octane hijinks along the way, but Garbo Talks never takes it to a consciously comedic level. Director Sidney Lumet, working with what he has, keeps things going at a tepid boil — the film should be more interesting than it is, either by leaning on the detective elements of the story, or its comic potential. What we have instead is a film that runs a long time on the Garbo mystique, but otherwise walks through the motions. Although, the final scene is amusing enough.

  • Romance (1930)

    Romance (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2021) I’m not one to presume that 1930s films were less sophisticated than today — less technically polished, certainly, but not any less intense or subtle in matters of plotting, emotion and characters. Or at least that’s the rule — there are exceptions, and Romance often feels like one of them. It’s straightforward, familiar, blunt and unpolished. To be fair, it’s a simple story told at length, which is not the kind of pacing that I like. It’s also quite rough from a cinematographic perspective — not quite shot like a theatrical play, but almost. As a result, it’s a bit of a slog to get through. Fortunately, there are a few things worth looking for: Greta Garbo is as humourless as usual, but she does look good in side-curls. The story, despite its lack of density, does eventually lead to a surprising conclusion, so there’s at least some payoff for the investment. (Not that it’s that long of a movie — it just feels that way.)  What doesn’t help Romance is (as is typical of movies from this period) a flatness of tone, both video and audio — there’s only so much you can do to restore films from that era, but the monotonous audiovisual experience can be curiously demanding for modern viewers. Romance is a bit of a blunt object, but it eventually serves its purpose… even if it takes a while to get there.

  • Queen Christina (1933)

    Queen Christina (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) Famously unamusing Greta Garbo stars in Sweden-set costume drama Queen Christina, going for a bit of gender-bending drama, as she is somehow temporarily mistaken for a man when she goes incognito in a humble inn. The mistaken gender bit doesn’t last long, as she ends up in bed with a dashing Spanish suitor who ends up being a diplomatic enjoy to the court she presides. Garbo has an unusually contemporary character, espousing antiwar sentiments and a constant push for her people’s well-being. Which only complicates the third act, as she has to choose between love or country. Queen Christina is intermittently interesting—Garbo is a legend, but her appeal was very specific and under her influence the film quickly heads to tragic romance, complete with a stoic ending shot. The film certainly doesn’t stick to history—the real Queen Christina was indeed progressive, but uninterested in marrying. It’s widely hailed as one of Garbo’s most striking performances, and the role is clearly tailored to her. Of course, that means that how to feel about the film will be tied to your own appreciation of Garbo…

  • Camille (1936)

    Camille (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Firmly steeped in the tradition of 1930s romantic period melodramas, Camille never hesitates to go with the big dramatic guns—no subtlety is allowed here, and the ending milks everything out of its depressing nature. The main draw here is Greta Garbo as a 19th century Parisian belle, draped in the best costumes that Hollywood could muster at the time. She is, as is de rigueur for such heroines, both afflicted with a deadly disease and torn between two men. Adapted from Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame aux camélias (itself inspired by Dumas’ own courtship), the rest of the plot plays exactly as you would expect an old-school romantic tragedy to go. Lavishly produced, Camille still has a few things worth crowing about—the great sets, terrific costumes and a completely humourless Garbo in one of her most memorable performances being what anyone will remember from the film. It is, obviously, not for everyone—as an old-fashioned weepie, it almost plays to clichés all the way through. But it’s not exactly a painful film to watch, and it does help round out George Cukor’s early filmography.

  • Two-Faced Woman (1941)

    Two-Faced Woman (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) What a strange, strange idea—to put famous can’t-laugh Greta Garbo as the lead of an ordinary romantic comedy. Sure, the film has a pedigree—with George Cukor directing, Two-Faced Woman at least has some baseline quality. But Garbo? She’s miscast so badly—in the role of a woman who pretends to play her own (fictional) twin sister in order to get her husband back—that she retired after this film. (Her retirement wasn’t completely due to Two-Faced Woman’s commercial flop—but it did not help.) This being said—ah, how can I say—I liked the film anyway. For one thing, the classic oh-so-serious Garbo isn’t my favourite; and for another thing, I’ve always had a soft spot for silly over-the-top comedy. Combine those things, and Two-Faced Woman isn’t so bad after all. Sure, the film is a bit mishandled (some of it due to hasty reshoots to placate censors) a bit broad, a bit inconsistent. But it’s still a high-concept romantic comedy, and this is one of the rare films where being unfamiliar (or unsympathetic) with the filmography of its star may be a benefit. I do think that another comedienne would have been better (as in: looser, funnier) than Garbo, but the film itself is worth a look and a few chuckles.

  • Anna Karenina (1935)

    Anna Karenina (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Another one in a long list of 1930s Hollywood literary adaptations, the 1935 version of Leo Tolstoy’s much-adapted Anna Karenina does have Greta Garbo, Fredrick March, and David O. Selznick as a producer—the three of them as close to Hollywood royalty as it was possible to get in the mid-1930s, which should give you an idea of the pedigree and importance of this Anna Karenina production. It goes without saying that Garbo is the main reason to see this version—it was a familiar role (she also played in a 1927 version), but this time she could use her voice. Although handsomely shot with big-budget production means most visible in sets and costumes, this production doesn’t quite have the technical polish nor expansive cinematography of later versions—but it does focus on the nuts and bolts of the story with good costume drama instincts (which includes a thorough culling of the novel to its most dramatic elements to fit within 90 minutes), so it’s still quite watchable today. I still prefer later versions, though.

  • Ninotchka (1939)

    Ninotchka (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) As unfair as it can be to judge a film by its remake, I do like Ninotchka quite a bit, but not as much as its musical remake Silk Stockings. Of course, there’s the star factor to consider: While Ninotchka has an impressive pairing with Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo, Silk Stockings has Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse—a most unfair comparison. Silk Stockings has finger-snapping tunes, while Ninotchka is a straight-up comedy. It’s really too bad for Ninotchka that Silk Stockings happens to be one of the most successful musical remakes in a subgenre littered with inferior results. Still—Ninotchka, what about it? It’s a story about three bumbling Soviet men coming to Paris to get back a piece of artwork, but being seduced by the hedonistic French lifestyle… which leads the Soviet government to send a hard-as-nail operative to clean up the mess. A perfect plan, except when she, too, falls under the charm of a Frenchman. The lead pair in nigh perfect: Melvyn Douglas approaches William Powell’s levels of pure suave charm, while Greta Garbo is a legend for a good reason. Ninotchka is one of the few comedies she’s even made (the tagline for the film was the fondly remembered “Garbo Laughs!”) and the film cleverly uses her persona as a façade against which Douglas’s charming powers crash time and time again. The bumbling Soviet emissaries are a lot of fun in the way they succumb to the pressures of Paris, but the highlight here is the interplay between Douglas and Garbo. The pro-Western jabs and Soviet rigidity are somewhat prescient of the Cold War, and do help the film feel more modern than its 1939 production date. Director Ernst Lubitsch turns in another success here, although perhaps a bit less impressive than some of his other features. Occluding unfair comparisons with its remake, Ninotchka remains a decent-enough romantic comedy, with sly one-liners and some good flirting dialogue.

  • The Painted Veil (1934)

    The Painted Veil (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) It’s completely unfair to compare a film with another adaptation made decades later, but here we are—I can help but measure the 1934 version of The Painted Veil with the 2006 adaptation of the same novel by W. Somerset Maugham, and being overly critical of the earlier film. There’s some logic to it, though: as a tough drama taking place in a picturesque location, this is a story that benefits from the increased technical sophistication of twenty-first century cinema. The colour cinematography, ethnic-appropriate casting, enhanced sense of place and ability to squarely tackle topics without skirting around censors and impressionable audiences (especially in a film focused on an affair) are undeniable strengths of the later film. What this version has is Greta Garbo in the lead role (admittedly an advantage only if you really like Garbo) and an ending that could be described as a happy one, avoiding the tragic finale of the novel and later adaptation. I’m normally someone who likes happy endings—even to the extent of defending some of the most outrageous ones imposed by Hollywood adaptations—but I can’t muster much enthusiasm for this one, so integral does the tragedy feel to the work. There’s also a fair point to be made that this version seems to be all about Garbo, Garbo, Garbo to the extent of minimizing the work it’s supposed to adapt. It does make an interesting contrast, though—between the studio-bound techniques of the 1930s versus the unlimited palette offered to 2000s filmmakers, between a cast-member taking over the story versus a team effort, between the emphasis that a version can place on sections of the story compared to another. I would have written another review had I not seen the 2006 adaptation of The Painted Veil first, but again—here we are.

  • Flesh and the Devil (1926)

    Flesh and the Devil (1926)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) As much as I love exploring what Classic Hollywood has to offer, it’s not because a film is old and still remembered that it’s good. While Flesh and the Devil is still noteworthy today for being one of Greta Garbo’s Hollywood breakout roles (and was selected for the National Film Registry), it remains a particularly melodramatic silent drama and those often age badly. The premise has to do with a love triangle between a woman and two friends, with plenty of complications. I didn’t like it all that much. Some of it has to do with the nature of silent dramas—the pacing is mortally slow, the overacting can get tiresome even by the standards of the day, and the underpinning of the drama is nothing like today. But some of it is specific to the choices made by Flesh and the Devil as well: the melodrama is overdone and Garbo’s character is portrayed as purely a temptress with little personality of her own. This dismissive portrait of the female lead, combined to a relationship between the two friends that would work better if they were brothers or even homosexual lovers, leads to an incredibly cruel bros-before-hoes climax that will leave modern viewers dumbfounded. I know, I know—cinema at that time was a heroic endeavor, and that it actually pulls off something that we can appreciate today is in itself a miracle. Still, well, blah.

  • Grand Hotel (1932)

    Grand Hotel (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018)  The thirties were a decade when Hollywood perfected the grammar and sales pitch of cinema, with Grand Hotel earning a minor place in history for two innovations: on an artistic level, pioneering the use of a 360-degree lobby set that allowed the camera to be pointed in any direction, and commercially for bringing together as many movie stars as the (comparatively large) budget would allow. It netted Grand Hotel a Best Picture Oscar back in 1933, but today the result has visibly aged. While the script still holds some interest by bringing together a bunch of vignettes that sometimes interact, much of the film is shot as a theatre piece, the lobby sequences being an exception that highlight the more traditional nature of the rest of the film. As far as star power is concerned, modern viewers can still enjoy the presences of Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford as well as Lionel and John Barrymore—even as reminders of why they were or became superstars. While the Berlin setting of the film may strike some as odd considering Hollywood’s insularity and the whole World War II unpleasantness a few years later, it’s worth noting that at the time, Hollywood was filled with German expats, that Berlin was a world-class city and the best-selling source novel spoke for itself. Also: this was the depression, and a bit of gentle European exoticism couldn’t hurt the movie-watching masses. Grand Hotel will forever live on as a Best Picture winner, and as a representative of the Hollywood machine as it was revving up in the early thirties, it’s a master class in itself.