A Greta Garbo Centennial Tribute

Friday, September 30, 2005

Love (1927) - Edmund Goulding - Part 1

To celebrate Greta Garbo's 100th birthday in September 18th 2005, every friday this month i will dedicate this blog to one of her Yet-To-Be Released-On-DVD movies. As i do in my other blog named : 24 Lies Per Second which is dedicated to "screen captures of old rare movies from vhs", i will focus on one of her movies in 24 frames taken from my personal collection. Before we begin, i want to thank TCMFrance for their nearly complete Garbo Retrospective in october 2004.
If you're living in the USA, be thrilled to know that Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the same great retrospective this very september 2005 !!


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Love aka Anna Karenina is the second of the movies Garbo played with her partner/boyfriend John Gilbert. The same year they made a huge success with the famous movie newly available on DVD : Flesh And The Devil by Clarence Brown.
But after 3 movies in Hollywood Garbo was beginning to get tired of playing the same vamp that MGM forced her to act. So she refuses to play in Women Love Diamonds By Edmund Goulding which was a flop with Pauline Stark & Owen Moore.
A few months later, she succeeded over MGM, her contract was changed and she was asked to play in Tolstoï's Anna Karenina with Ricardo Cortez, her partner in Torrent. But after 6 weeks of filming, Garbo pretended to feel sick to gain time and finally obtained who she wanted for this movie. The previous director Dimitri Buchowetski was replaced by...Edmund Goulding with who she will play again in 1932 Grand Hotel.
And of course she got John Gilbert, with who she was living a famous romance at the time.

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1927 was also the year of the first talking movie. MGM didn't believe that people were interesting in hearing the actor's voice. So Garbo will do 6 other silent movies and people had to wait 3 more years in 1930 to hear her voice in one of her best movie Anna Christie (newly available on DVD).

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The year before Gilbert was supposed to marry Garbo but she left the very morning. Everyone knows that Gilbert was deeply in love with her when she wasn't that interested.
When he died of a heart attack in 1936, Garbo did not attend his funeral.

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Years later Garbo has said of him : "It's a friendship. i shall never marry...He's a gentleman, passionate. He uplifts me when i play. It is not an act, i'm living". John Bainbridge. Garbo.1955

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Garbo was only 22 when she played the mother of a 10 year old child played by Philippe De Lacy with great complicity.
He will end his career at the age of 13. Strangely in 1950 he will resurfaced as the director of The Buster Keaton Show on US TV !!

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"Special scenes were written for him and Garbo was given clear instructions not to upstage him. She therefore held back, permitted him to upstage her and smiled divinely whenever he overacted. Because he overacted most of the time, the audience was consious only of the warmth and beauty of her smile". Robert Payne. The Great Garbo. Coopersquarepress.

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"Garbo had never been more radiant. There are close-ups in the film as incandescent as any that came before or any that came afterward. They owed nothing to the nondescript screenplay and everything to the cameraman, William Daniels, who had fallen in love with her face from the moment he set eyes on it". Robert Payne. The Great Garbo. Coopersquarepress.

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This was the first 29 frames i'll post of this movie.
Next monday you'll see the last 30.
In the meantime, any comments will be appreciated.
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Monday, September 26, 2005

Susan Lennox (1931) - Robert Z.Leonard - Part 2

To celebrate Greta Garbo's 100th birthday in September 18th 2005, every friday this month i will dedicate this blog to one of her Yet-To-Be Released-On-DVD movies. As i do in my other blog named : 24 Lies Per Second which is dedicated to "screen captures of old rare movies from vhs", i will focus on one of her movies in 24 frames taken from my personal collection. Before we begin, i want to thank TCMFrance for their nearly complete Garbo Retrospective in october 2004.
If you're living in the USA, be thrilled to know that Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the same great retrospective this very september 2005 !!

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So this is my last 27 frames taken from Susan Lennox by Robert Z.Leonard. Yes, i know i didn't respect my rules of 24 frames but this is Greta Garbo and each week it is very difficult to choose those 24 frames, so...
Enjoy the bonus !!

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Another surprising and sexy outfit for Garbo made by her famous costume designer Adrian. Like Garbo, he didn't received one Academy Award (Oscar) despite being considered by most as Hollywood's greatest costume designer. Anyway, Awards don't mean a thing.

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The same year, John Miljan played another small part in previous Garbo's movie "Inspiration". He also played one last one in a Garbo movie in Grand Hotel the year after. But he was uncredited.
Some haven't got the luck !!

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"Life could be wonderful - if we only knew what to do with it".
Garbo. December 1940 a letter to Hörke.

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This scene anticipates the great shots from the famous Musical Comedy The Great Ziegfeld for which Robert Z.Leonard won an Academy Award in 1937.

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There are some great scenes when they meet again at last. Clark Gable is fascinating as the desperate fellow.

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Garbo said to a friend of hers who asked her if she wasn't happy in this movie :
"Happy, who is happy ? nobody can be happy acting in Cinema."
Quoted by Barry Paris in : Garbo, A Biography. Knopf, 1995.

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PLOT
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"Susan, a young Swedish-American woman, is forced into an arranged marriage with a man she despises. Running away from home to avoid the union, she ends up in the arms of Rodney, an engineer. The two consummate their genuine love, but through an unfortunate set of circumstances. Susan engages a brief dalliance with a carnival owner. When Rodney finds out about the affair, he banishes Susan from his life -- but not his heart. Unable to cope with his sorrow and disappointment, Rodney gives up engineering and become a drunken vagabond. Susan goes on to lead a profitable existence as the consort of wealthy men. But her love for Rodney remains undimmed. Over the course of many years and through many changes in fortune, Susan pursues Rodney across the globe, determined to win his forgiveness."
Mooviees.com

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NOTES
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These frames are taken from a Broadcast on TCMFrance in october 2004.
Susan Lennox has been made available by Warner Home Video on VHS in 1990.

bye bye now...
See you next friday for another Garbo movie.
In the meantime, any comments will be appreciated.
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