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DVD Queen Christina
Arguably Greta Garbo's best MGM movie--depending how you feel about Camille and Ninotchka--this tale of the 17th-century Swedish monarch who preferred men's togs to gowns plays the most provocative games with the great star's ambisexual personality. At her request, Rouben Mamoulian directed (all three Garbo's-best-movie candidates were done by the best directors she worked with: Mamoulian, George Cukor, and Ernst Lubitsch). Two sequences are legendary: Christina memorizing the room at a snowbound inn where she has first experienced love; and the long, concluding closeup of a queen become ship's-figurehead--as blank as a tabula rasa, and filled with all the meaning and emotion seven decades of audiences have chosen to see there. Those scenes are anthology pieces, but unlike most Garbo pictures, the whole movie is intelligently scripted and sustained. With Lewis Stone, C. Aubrey Smith, and John Gilbert--Garbo's premier silent-era costar--making a tentative comeback as her love interest. --Richard T. Jameson
I have to be a contrarian about this film. As a "star vehicle" I suppose it's OK -- Garbo is in practically every scene & certainly displays all the qualities of a glamour queen. But the film itself is otherwise pathetic -- where to begin? Ham-fisted direction, uniformly awful supporting cast (who was their dialogue coach? They all speak in the same wooden, portentious tones), out-of-period make-up, poor camera angles, curiously truncated scenes (why is the fatal sword fight so short??). Surprisingly, I thought John Gilbert was not too bad, though he is clearly too old for the part & his eye-liner makes him look like a silent film actor who wandered onto the set by mistake -- but that's mostly because the rest of the supporting players are so bad.
Greta Garbo
I am so glad these old Greta Garbo movies are coming to life again. Being Swedish and an old Greta Garbo admirer I very much enjoyed all her old movies but especially Queen Christina. I only wish that a sequel of Queen Christina's life after abdication would have been filmed because she was quite an extraordinary woman and I would have loved seing Greta Garbo in that role. Queen Christina defied the stuffy rulers of Sweden, abdicated and went on her journey to Rome in order to practice catholosism which at that time was a crime punished by execution in Sweden. In Rome, she accomplished great things and lived a very interesting life.
An overrated chapter in Garbo's oeuvre
It's pretty unanimous that the hypnotism of Garbo's acting and charisma were consistent even in her lesser films where nothing else made the films worth watching. Queen Christina, however, is always touted as an excellent MOVIE with perfect casting and bristling dialogue. I'm an old movies fan and a Garbo fan, but I guess I'm alone in feeling Queen Christina is OVERRATED. I'm not knocking Garbo's acting or anything, because as always, it's of the highest caliber. But the script is dry and crawls with all the gourmet taste of a mouthful of sawdust. John Gilbert, once a dashing hero of the screen, looks about a hundred and twenty years too old for the part of Antonio. Oh, if I only had a thaler for every wrinkle on his face...(sigh)
The most awkward pill of all for me to swallow whenever I trudge through this cranky old costumer is that Garbo fools everyone at the inn into thinking she is a man. What the hell? I have tried squinting my eyes every way I know how, turning the sound down, and shotgunning a hearty grog, but I just can't see it. She walks like a man okay, but Adrian, that elusive costume guy who always turns up in the credits, OR SOMEONE, should have put her in more convincing clothes and nixed the lipstick and eyelashes.
This movie reminds me of Hitchcock's WORST films - even they have a few really riveting scenes, cinematography-wise, but the rest of the film is a cotton-dry bore.
Ah, those fun-loving Communists! In Ninotchka three Soviets make their way to Paris to sell off imperial jewels to raise money to buy tractors for the USSR. When Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire), former owner of the jewels, discovers what's happening, she deploys her lover Leon (Melvyn Douglas) to recover her gems. He starts a court proceeding while seducing the three bumbling Soviets with the luxuries of capitalistic life. The delay of the sale is noticed in Moscow, and Comrade Ninotchka (Greta Garbo) is dispatched to Paris to settle the matter. Soon after arrival, she meets Leon, who is charmed by her severe, uptight manner and her stunning beauty ("I love Russians! Comrade, I've been fascinated by your five-year plan for the last 15 years"), and he sets about wooing her, despite... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Greta Garbo - Melvyn Douglas Director(s): Ernst Lubitsch DVD Release Date: Released the 06 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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One of Greta Garbo's touchstone films, this 1937 adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel finds the actress playing a dying courtesan who falls in love with a young nobleman (a slightly miscast Robert Taylor) and must sacrifice her happiness. Directed by George Cukor (The Philadelphia Story), the supreme "women's director" in Hollywood at the time, the film could have existed just to give Garbo room to be luminous (despite her character's illness) and a great star. But it is also a gorgeous MGM production with strong performances from Lionel Barrymore and the rest of the cast. (Henry Daniell is a standout as the villain.) --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Greta Garbo - Robert Taylor - Lionel Barrymore Director(s): George Cukor DVD Release Date: Released the 06 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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