Movie Review: Susan Lenox (Her Fall And Rise) (1931)

A torrid drama and romance, Susan Lenox features the only teaming of Greta Garbo and Clark Gable in a sometimes overheated love story mixed with the struggles of a woman defining her own way in life.

Helga is born to an unmarried mother who dies during childbirth, and raised by cruel uncle Karl (Jean Hersholt). As soon as the adult Helga (Garbo) reaches marrying age, Karl arranges for her to wed the boorish Jeb (Alan Hale). Helga wants no part of a loveless marriage and escapes into a stormy night, ending up at the cabin of engineer Rodney Spencer (Gable).

They fall in love, but when Rodney has to travel to Detroit, Helga has to again escape the clutches of Karl and Jeb. She joins a traveling carnival and assumes the identity of Susan Lenox, cozying up to the show's leader Wayne Burlingham (John Miljan) for safety. When Rodney comes looking for her he is disgusted by her indiscretion, rupturing their relationship and leading Susan towards a new bohemian lifestyle.

Clocking in at a quick 76 minutes, Susan Lenox is an adaptation of the at-the-time scandalous (and posthumously published) 1917 novel by David Graham Phillips. Director Robert Z. Leonard works from a tight screenplay (co-written by four people) to slim down the 900 page book into a compact story of one woman taking on the world and determined to deal with men on her own terms. And Leonard sneaks in some clever introductory scenes using nothing more than shadows on the wall to summarize Helga's difficult upbringing.

Despite an obsession with the objective of snaring a man for legitimate marriage, the story's early feminist streak is impressive. Helga refuses to marry the man assigned to her, strikes out on her own during a stormy night, wins Rodney's heart, and when fate tears them apart, does what she needs to do to survive and then thrive. As the years roll on she gains a world weariness but never loses sight of her sense of self-worth, and keeps her eyes on the one prize that matters.

Many of the dialogue scenes exhibit signs of awkward clunkiness, and the heat between Garbo and Gable reaches only lukewarm temperatures, her aura of sophistication floating well above his well-intentioned gruffness. Despite the film's brevity the scenes between them are prolonged and stray into repetitiveness, until a most abrupt ending ties everything up with a sharp emotional U-turn.

Better are some of the set designs, including the final location of "Puerto Sacate". The dancehall bustles with shady hustlers, drowning miseries or seeking fortunes at a peripheral and seedy port hub. Susan Lenox absolutely knows what she does not want out of life, but will need to transition through unlikely outposts to secure what she craves.

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Movie Review: The Painted Veil (1934)

A drama about adultery and atonement, The Painted Veil is bogged down by stiff execution.

The initial setting is Austria. After her younger sister gets married, Katrin (Greta Garbo) feels the pressure and hastily agrees to wed the earnest but uncharismatic Dr. Walter Fane (Herbert Marshall). He loves her, but she is ambivalent. They relocate to China, where Walter is quickly preoccupied with fighting a cholera epidemic.

The neglected Katrin is charmed by British diplomat Jack Townsend (George Brent), who is himself married but unabashedly lusts after Katrin. She cannot resist his charms, and with Walter intent on pursuing the inland source of the worsening epidemic, Katrin's marriage is soon in a heap of trouble.

Directed by Richard Boleslawski and based on a W. Somerset Maugham story, The Painted Veil offers a dependable Greta Garbo performance and a decent recreation of Chinese locations on the MGM backlot.

But otherwise this is a stodgy drama about a cold marriage, infidelity and attempted redemption, with unconvincing performances by Herbert Marshall and George Brent. The cholera sub-plot could have added some intrigue, but is poorly handled. Somehow Dr. Fane takes on the role of dictative commander and social disruptor, issuing orders to the Chinese military. Walter is eventually undone by his own preposterous actions, and it's not in the film's favour that his consequent punishment appears richly deserved.

Garbo lights up the screen whenever she is on it, draping her co-stars in long shadows, but she is not helped by a character who demonstrates ill judgment at every turn. The noisy recreations of Chinese culture, festivals, rural hardship and epidemic-induced panic are passable as an exotic distraction from the dull plot.

The Painted Veil cannot hide Garbo's transcendent talent, but neither can she lift the drama above the doldrums.

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The Movies Of Greta Garbo

All movies starring Greta Garbo and reviewed on the Ace Black Blog are linked below:

Susan Lenox (Her Fall And Rise) (1931)

Mata Hari (1931)

Grand Hotel (1932)

Queen Christina (1933)

The Painted Veil (1934)

Camille (1936)

Ninotchka (1939)

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The Index of Movie Stars is here.

Movie Review: Ninotchka (1939)

A romantic comedy with political ornaments, Ninotchka is an appealing story of love and laughter blossoming across cultural barriers.

The cash-strapped Soviet government dispatches three officials named Iranoff, Buljanoff, and Kopalski to Paris to sell a precious set of jewels previously belonging to the Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire). The three men struggle to reconcile their communist ideals with all the luxuries that Paris has to offer, but eventually succumb and install themselves in a lavish hotel suite. Swana calls on her suave agent and potential lover Count Leon d'Algout (Melvyn Douglas) to quickly impose a court order freezing the sale or transfer of the jewels. Leon also proceeds to fully corrupt the three Soviet officials with parties, booze and women.

Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova (Greta Garbo) is the next Soviet envoy to arrive, in an attempt to resolve the thorny situation. All business and fully committed to the communist cause, Ninotchka appears incorruptible. But Leon is persistent, and gradually she capitulates and falls in love with both the Count and the benefits of capitalism. With Ninotchka overwhelmed with love, Swana moves in to try and seize the initiative, claim her jewelry and reassert her hold on Leon.

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-written by a team of four writers including Billy Wilder, Ninotchka showcases Greta Garbo at her best in a role designed to tease out her talent for dry comedy and sweet romance. The film is also a prescient early salvo in the war between ideologies. And in stubbornly concluding that the charms of luxury that come with capitalism are irresistible, the story manages to look ahead 50 years to the ultimate Achilles' heel of the communist ideal.

The first two thirds of Ninotchka are sharper and more enjoyable. The stage is set in the misadventures of Iranoff, Buljanoff, and Kopalski as they wrestle between their conscience and Paris' decadence. The battle is decisively won as soon as Leon brings out the weapons of mass seduction in the form of endless supplies of food, drinks, music, tobacco and attractive servers delivered straight to the extravagant hotel suite. But this is all an intro to Garbo's arrival as Ninotchka to straighten matters out. The witty script reaches a peak in the battle of wills between her intractable, factual adherence to soulless discourse while Leon tries all he knows to touch her heart.

Once love blossoms and Ninotchka surrenders to an entranced state the film slows into a mild overdose of sentimentality, and the edge is lost. Swana swoops in to create a standard love triangle and the film becomes more of a routine struggle between two women hoping to win the heart of the same man according to their moral compass.

In her penultimate film role Garbo is as entrancing as ever, and particularly effective in her deadpan delivery of communist beliefs, dutifully stripped of any semblance of individual humanity. Melvyn Douglas provides a strong counterpart as the elegant lover with a metaphorical blowtorch patiently intent on melting the ice around her heart. Bela Lugosi makes a late appearance as Commissar Razinin, Ninotchka's fearsome boss back in Russia.

Cleverly weaving romance, politics and humour, Ninotchka is as elegant as its Parisian setting.

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Movie Review: Mata Hari (1931)

A spy drama and an intense romance, Mata Hari features Greta Garbo at her best and a satisfyingly convoluted story of suspicion and enticement in wartime Paris.

It's Paris in 1917, the World War is raging and Paris is gripped by spy fever. Counterintelligence chief Dubois (C. Henry Gordon) is convinced that exotic dancer Mata Hari (Garbo) is a spy working for the Germans, but cannot prove it. After a dangerous flight over Europe, Russia's Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff (Ramon Novarro), a young and handsome pilot, lands in Paris with an important message. His superior General Serge Shubin (Lionel Barrymore) introduces him to Mata, and Alexis is immediately smitten.

Mata is indeed a spy, and her stern handler Andriani (Lewis Stone) instructs her to find the contents of the messages being transported by Alexis. Both Shubin and Alexis believe that they are in love with Mata, and she has to play a dangerous game of seduction to extract information while evading Dubois' ever tightening noose.

Directed by George Fitzmaurice, Mata Hari helped to popularize the misty legend of the sexy Dutch dancer who mesmerized the Parisian upper classes while possibly passing on information to the Germans. The film features just the one dance early on to establish Mata's allure, and then invests in the power dynamics between men and women engaged in dangerous battles of sexual conquest while trading in war secrets.

Most of the film is set indoors, and apart from the ending it all takes place over a couple of days and nights as Alexis awaits his return orders. Fitzmaurice manages to generate reasonable tension from longish scenes of dialogue, efficiently introducing the characters, their motivations and the Parisian society context before settling down to chart a battle of wills between spies, lovers, and spyhunters. Mata needs to stay one step ahead of Dubois while extricating the information she needs from Shubin and Alexis, and the film is essentially a clever chess game of move and countermove, with love and sex clouding the judgement of several pieces.

The film is a showcase for the enigmatic Garbo, convincing as a slinky dancer and a conniving, quick-thinking agent. A modern performer ahead of her cinematic times, at 26 years old she commands the screen with her combination of sensuality and intelligence, and adds a small dose of vulnerability when Mata succumbs to love. The men in contrast are merely adequate, firmly stranded in the wide-eyed theatricality of the early talkie era.

The film reaches a magical peak in a prolonged sequence as Mata wraps Alexis around her fingers, gradually nudging him to forsake all that he holds sacred for the privilege of one night of pleasure. Mata ends the night owning Alexis' soul and his secrets, and he is none the wiser. Men may control all the war machines, but they are no match for the guile of one woman on a mission.

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Movie Review: Camille (1936)

A turgid, slow-moving melodramatic romance, Camille has aged quite badly, but nevertheless features a dominant Greta Garbo performance.

It's Paris in the 1870s, and rich men cavort with mistresses at the city's swank theatres and parties. Marguerite Gautier (Garbo), also known as Dame Camille, is one of the desirable courtesans, known as fun-loving, free-spending and frequently sick. The modest and passionate Armand Duval (Robert Taylor) falls madly in love with Marguerite, and although she does develop feelings for him, his modest wealth means that he probably cannot afford to sustain her. The stiff Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell) is rich beyond imagination and desires Marguerite as a prize, but she feels nothing for him.

Torn between a man who loves her and a man with money, Marguerite decides to spend the summer with Armand at his modest cottage, and the two fall deeply in love. But Armand's father Monsieur Duval (Lionel Barrymore) intervenes, disrupting their plans and forcing Marguerite to reassess her choices.

An adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas (fils) story La Dame aux Camélias, Camille is heavy on lavish gowns, grand settings, and decadent gatherings where the rich, famous and frivolous gather to drink, gossip, and waste away their lives in the pursuit of shallow pleasure.

But the film is weighed down by an awkward script that features scene after scene -- after scene -- of Marguerite, Armand and the Baron talking, and talking, and talking, about love and commitment (or lack thereof). Director George Cukor does his best, and for the most part this means keeping his cameras trained on Garbo, giving her plenty of close-ups that she exploits to perfection. But the movie all but stands still, and with none of the characters all too likeable or rounded-out in any way beyond their emotional entanglements, there is precious little else to celebrate.

There are a few secondary characters that attempt, usually quite unsuccessfully, to inject noisy comic relief, but the next scene is almost always yet another long-winded two-person conversation about living, loving and dying. Camille slowly but surely withers away, long before all the maudlinism finally comes to a merciful end.

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Movie Review: Grand Hotel (1932)

A multi-star ensemble drama set entirely at a Berlin hotel, Grand Hotel is a lavish production that takes its time to develop some momentum, but eventually ties some threads together into coherent mini stories.

The lives of several people intersect at the luxurious Grand Hotel. Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) is a Russian ballerina facing a motivation crisis. Baron Felix von Gaigern (John Barrymore) is a suave thief with significant money problems, pretending to be a distinguished gentleman. General Director Preysing (Wallace Beery) is an industrial magnate trying to conclude a key business deal, but he is distracted by stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford). Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) is a lowly accountant in Preysing's empire, and has a terminal disease.

Grusinskaya and the Baron meet and fall in love as he is trying to steal her pearls, and she finds her emotional salvation in his affection. Preysing runs into a tough negotiating team and has to bluff his way to a deal. Flaemmchen has to decide whether or not to compromise herself for a shot at glory as Preysing's mistress. And the Baron is the only person displaying genuine affection towards Kringelein. Before they all leave the hotel, their lives will collide with unintended consequences.

Directed by Edmund Goulding for MGM, Grand Hotel is the earliest example of a star-studded cast and multiple interwoven story lines connected primarily by a single location. And the cast of stars is in fine form, although they do all lean towards self-conscious theatricality. With Grusinskaya at her lowest ebb, Garbo gets to say "I want to be alone" and variations thereof three different times in a span of a few minutes, sentiments that would forever jump off the screen and be associated with the actress' general attitude towards life.

Both Barrymores are eminently watchable as they deliver committed performances. Wallace Beery defines "bombastic", and Joan Crawford takes a large step towards stardom as the third-billed star, and gives the film's most affecting performance as the pragmatic Flaemmchen.

The film is staged exclusively inside the hotel, and the sets are made to look appropriately luxurious. But with a running length of 112 minutes, Goulding does begin to run out of ideas on how to make the various hotel rooms and expansive lobby interesting.

The initial lack of focus on any single person or narrative hampers the opening 45 minutes of the film, as the characters take too long to introduce themselves and the events that landed them at the hotel. The early scenes are all longer than they need to be, and it's only once Grusinskaya and the Baron meet and discover a new spark in their depressed lives that Grand Hotel starts to hum.

As usual conflict helps to fan the flames of drama, and the friction between the haughty Preysing and the humble Kringelein finally emerges to provide Grand Hotel with its central theme of rich and poor, healthy and sick, the cold and the caring, the corporate and the individual intersecting at the same venue. By the time the Baron has made his last attempt to secure the funds that he needs, and Flaemmchen has confronted her ticket out of anonymity, all the stories collide in Preysing's suite. At the Grand Hotel the rich and powerful may try to control the agenda, but all the guests have to pays their bills.

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Movie Review: Queen Christina (1933)

At the height of her world-wide popularity as the screen' most enigmatic star, Greta Garbo took on the role of Queen Christina, Sweden's mysterious and unconventional 17th century monarch. Garbo delivers a beguiling performance, elevating the movie to a dreamy, luxurious romance.

When her father the king dies in battle, Christina is elevated to the throne at age six. Demonstrating an independent, antithetic attitude from a young age, Christina grows up to become a popular leader. Still only in her twenties, she negotiates peace from a position of strength and favours reading and promoting the arts and culture rather than warmongering.

Christina resists pressure to marry the heroic warrior Karl Gustav (Reginald Owen), and fends off the attentions of Count Magnus (Ian Keith). Instead she prefers the company of Countess Ebba Sparre (Elizabeth Young) and manly pursuits, including aggressive horseback riding, wearing pants, and handling weapons. Out riding in the countryside to temporarily escape the burdens of the throne, Christina meets and falls in love with Spanish envoy Antonio (John Gilbert). They spend a heavenly night at a secluded inn, before Christina has to return to reality and balance the unexpected romance with the demands of her people to marry a Swede.

The Samuel Behrman script is only loosely based on the actual Christina. The central romance with Antonio is fiction, but here serves to emphasize Christina's strong non-conformist streak. Her refusal to pursue the traditional path of marrying a noble Swede to produce a suitable heir is accurate, but the movie adds the scandalous romance to a Spaniard as an exclamation point.

Greta Garbo's performance is commanding, effortlessly dominating all her scenes with a physical and mystical presence that demands obedience. Christina's only enemies are boredom, the trivialities of governance, and the shackles of tradition. Garbo conveys Christina's dismissiveness of convention with salient eyes, a confident and imperious tone of voice, and physical gestures that hint at both royal lethargy and endless patience with those of lesser intellect.

Garbo embraces the challenges of the character with adroit fluidity, adopting the Queen's male disguise with a glint in her eye and snuggling comfortably with hints of lesbian tendencies in the relationship with Ebba Sparre.

Director Rouben Mamoulian allows his cameras to worship Garbo, and confirms her regal status in two justifiably celebrated scenes. The first is a stunning three minutes of Garbo memorizing this room as she explores with her fingers, her skin and her soul every object in the room at the inn where her romance with Antonio blossomed. The second is the closing shot, a zoom in on Garbo's face as she stands at the bow of a ship, staring at absolutely nothing and thinking of every future imaginable.

The rest of the cast, including a John Gilbert desperately trying but failing to salvage a career in talkies, simply drown in Garbo's wake, the congregation of men trying in vain to control Christina's life melding into a mess of misplaced machismo.

Without being lavish, Queen Christina is a grand production. The set designs convey a winter-hardened Sweden, a bustling and functional royal palace, and interiors that combine required royal eminence with Swedish pragmatism. Ironically, amidst all the dignified nobility the most famous set is that humble inn where Christina and Antonio spend the night, a roadside stop designed to change the course of life.

Queen Christina delights with the story of a rogue royal, eons ahead of her time and portrayed by an all-time legend.

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