Greta Garbo (1905-1990)
2005
marks the centenary of the
queen of the MGM lot in the Twenties and Thirties and Warner will
release most of her best films on DVD on both sides of the Atlantic by
the end of the year. It will give film fans an opportunity to consider
Garbo's qualities as an actress away from the glamour and myth that
surround her. She was critically pretty much unassailable in the
Thirties, her performance in Camille (1937) was praised as the best
ever on film back then, today though her screen persona of mystery
hasn't aged that well. Some of her best films are really little more
than standard romantic melodrama with tragedy, some modern like
Depression audiences find this hard to respond to with great
enthusiasm. She was always very popular overseas probably partly
explaining the dismal failure of her last film Two Faced Woman (1941)
hit by wartime embargoes though it is in truth not very good.Garbo's career was initially guided by the great Swedish director Mauritz Stiller who was the initial hook for Hollywood executives. Apparently they hadn't seen her in The Atonement of Gosta Berling (1924) and Joyless Street (1925) but their attention shifted very quickly from Stiller to his protege.
Her first two Hollywood films The Torrent (1926) and The Temptress (1926) have been unfairly neglected but when she was linked romantically with John Gilbert after they costarred in Flesh and the Devil (1926) both their careers were boosted. Garbo was set to marry Gilbert but she wanted to give up movies which he didn't want her to do. Although they appeared together in two more silents : Love (1927) and A Woman of Affairs (1928) the affair quickly cooled.
Garbo had a thick accent and MGM waited as long as it could before subjecting it to the microphone. Her first talkie Anna Christie (1930) was a big success and her voice intensified the mystique that surrounded her. Her accent became no obstacle for the roles she could play but she was acted off the screen by most of the rest of the cast in the all star Grand Hotel (1932). She was back on form in Queen Christina (1933) melodramatic historical nonsense but put over with great style, it was one of her finest films. Director Rouben Mamoulian provided her with two of her greatest sequences on film, the first when she wanders around a room recalling its contents and then the final scene with her blank expression at the front of a boat. The film also reunited her with John Gilbert who wasn't the first choice for the male lead (his career had went downhill since the arrival of sound), Garbo at the height of her power insisted on him.
From the mid Thirties on Garbo's movies became less popular and she was for a time labeled like a few other stars box office poison. Doom laden melodrama wasn't well received at the height of the Depression. Sensing a change of direction was required MGM took the risk of casting her in a comedy. Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939) was a big success and is probably her best film, attempts to repeat the success with another comedy
failed and she retired from the screen.
There is no doubt Garbo was one of the great legends of cinema, her films were variable in quality but in the end it doesn't really matter, her mystique and legend goes on.
FILMOGRAPHY
1921 EN LYCKORIDDARE performer
1922 PETER THE TRAMP/ LUFFAR-PETTER performer
1924 THE ATONEMENT OF GOSTA BERLING/ GOSTA BERLINGS SAGA/THE LEGEND OF GOSTA BERLING performer
1925 THE JOYLESS STREET/ DIE FREUDLOSE GASSE/STREET OF SORROW performer
1926 THE TEMPTRESS performer
1926 THE TORRENT performer
1927 FLESH AND THE DEVIL performer
1927 LOVE performer
1928 THE DIVINE WOMAN performer
1928 MYSTERIOUS LADY performer
1928 A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS performer
1929 THE KISS performer
1929 A MAN'S MAN performer
1929 THE SINGLE STANDARD performer
1929 WILD ORCHIDS performer
1930 ANNA CHRISTIE performer
1930 ROMANCE performer
1931 INSPIRATION performer
1931 SUSAN LENOX: HER FALL AND RISE performer
1932 AS YOU DESIRE ME performer
1932 GRAND HOTEL performer
1932 MATA HARI performer
1933 QUEEN CHRISTINA performer
1934 THE PAINTED VEIL performer
1935 ANNA KARENINA performer
1937 CAMILLE performer
1937 CONQUEST/ MARIA WALEWSKA performer
1939 NINOTCHKA performer
1941 TWO-FACED WOMAN performer
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Written content of the Golden Age of Hollywood Website (except where indicated) copyright Derek McLellan, 2007.