Der Garten Allahs

After watching this film on Turner Classic Movies, the host, Robert Osborne, said that "it's best to ignore the story" and just enjoy the film! This is a great way to sum up this odd little film. In some ways, it's a terrific film--it's one of the prettiest color films of the 1930s and is a real artistic triumph. However, despite the masterful color filming, it's an incredibly dull and uninspiring film--thanks to a very tepid script.

In a bit of a departure, Marlene Dietrich plays a rather decent and chaste woman instead of her usual 1930s vamp. Oddly, however, the magnetic Charles Boyer is given the limpest and least interesting role in the film. He plays a monk who has left his order, but instead of a man searching for SOMETHING outside the monastery, he just looks rather constipated and confused--mostly staring into the camera or looking rather depressed. How Marlene fell for this dull yutz is beyond me! Because of this character, the film itself just seemed silly and trivial. BUT, combined with the great camera-work, it is still worth a look--just don't set your hopes too high!

Much abuse has been heaped upon this film in users' comments here ("tripe," "hokum," etc.) and, yes, in later years even Marlene herself called it "twash," (along with most of the rest of her movies). But it's gweat twash and, in all fairness, much-loved weepies like "An Affair To Remember" have got nothing on this picture. The fabulousness (that's definitions 1 & 2 in Webster's) of the plot, the emphatic performances, the overblown dialogue and the sheer absurd audacity of full silver service and "dressing for dinner" in a tent in the middle of the Sahara; these are the very things for which you watch such a film. After all, if life was never like this anywhere, at any time, it sure should have been.

The user who suggested the "right mood" is necessary is absolutely correct, and it helps to remember the perspective of audiences of the time who, while the Depression dragged on, desired escapism that bore no resemblance to their real lives. We certainly have our escapist fare today and, believe me, "Spiderman," "The Matrix" and "The Fast and the Furious" are going to look at least as ridiculous - if not more so - after a half-century (if not before). So, please, let's not have any more carping about implausibility.

The aspects that have garnered the most criticism are some of the very elements that make it so much fun, but you must abandon your jaded cynicism and surrender yourself to the experience. I'd never recommend this film to everyone I know, but of those to whom I have done - people I knew could appreciate it - not one has gotten all the way through it without choking back a tear or two (if not outright bawling like a baby).

One thing everyone does seem to agree on is the ravishingly beautiful look of this picture, and they're oh-so-right about that. The DVD from Anchor Bay is particularly stunning - there are scenes that look like they were shot yesterday - so, if you decide to see the film, try to get your hands on a copy of that release.

Incidentally, this was not the first Technicolor picture in the three-strip process (as opposed to the two-strip, which goes back to 1922) shot on location, as one comment said. That honor most likely belongs to "Trail Of the Lonesome Pine," which was shot and released a few months earlier.

"Sunshine all the time makes a desert." (an Arab proverb).

A viewpoint that great visuals and skillful performances are enough to turn even a dull screenplay into an entertaining motion picture seems too much simplified. However, in some instances, such perspective occurs to make sense. Seldom may it occur as relevant as in THE GARDEN OF ALLAH directed by Richard Boleslawski and produced by David O. Selznick. The strengths of the movie do not lie in clever storyline but in amazing camera and lighting work as well as performances.

As one of the first three strip Technicolor films after BECKY SHARP and long before THE WIZARD OF OZ, the colors of THE GARDEN OF ALLAH have much to boast of. In many of its scenes attempted at purely visual experience, the aesthetic impressions are in no way dated. Clarence Slifer, collaborating with other artistically innovative people, does a wonderful job. Just to note the effective use of red (one of the most beloved colors in the period of color experimentation) symbolizing the land of fire and desire where the protagonists' destinies meet, the shots of the desert as backdrop with persons and caravans in silhouettes as well as the interiors. The elaborate visuals are particularly memorable in a little scene of Domina and Father Roubier when he tries to warn her against the man she loves. Consider the particular detail as she leaves the sacristy. Besides the cinematographic pearls of location shots and camera work, what strongly contributes to the memorable impressions are costumes by Jeannette Couget and music by Max Steiner (in particular the use of Schubert's "Ave Maria" and the atmospheric song "No One But God and I Know What is in My Heart"). But let me now develop, perhaps, the most striking feature of the film – performances, which I am not going to divide into main roles and supporting characters since this is one of the movies of the 1930s which cannot be treated as 'a vehicle' for Marlene Dietrich solely. Single individuals deserve unique praise for making the hardly believable content still communicative.

Marlene Dietrich, freed from the guidance of her tutor Josef Von Sternberg) portrays a character whose mind and dreams are occupied by the search for happiness, for finding herself. As a young, beautiful actress with subtle presence on the screen and girlish movements she is nothing but outstanding. The effect of her screen presence is, of course, multiplied by the use of colors and a number of costumes she wears. Ms Dietrich reminds me a lot of her earlier role (also away from Sternberg) in THE SONG OF SONGS. However, she is not Garbo who proved to be 'a queen on her own' preferring to be left alone to go on with her lines and cooperation with the camera. Dietrich was more generous with her co-stars. Consequently, Ms Dietrich cannot be considered fully without her leading men. And one is truly captivating. That is...

Charles Boyer. Although his character lacks logical sense of his motifs and may be less communicative with audiences, he proves unbelievable acting skills. His performance is filled with extravaganza, rebellious attitude, self-imposed, almost blasphemous ignorance of the hard past, neurotic struggle for materializing his inner desires. It is all a great insight into the tormented, almost tortured character who does not seek refuge in loneliness but in the arms of a woman. Having experienced the extreme silence and hermit-like life as a Trappist monk, his tortured soul strives for passions (to fulfill them) and the fire of lust (to extinguish it). While Ms Dietrich's scene is the memorable finale (after she received the harsh test she prayed for), his moment is the speech scene when teary eyes and sweaty forehead manifest the most inner struggles. Although it does not necessarily work so logically, the moment is worth seeing thanks to his compelling performance. Even the liqueur would not taste that good... Although Boyer worked with the various female stars of the time, including Garbo and Bette Davis, there is a strong chemistry between him and Marlene Dietrich. Their scenes are sweet, fussy and overly sensitive but worth seeing. The finale is also something of a genius collaboration of the leading protagonists. Joy, tears, smile evoke.

Joseph Schildkraut has particularly witty and charming moments as Batouch, a sort of character no one will be after but everyone will like. C. Aubrey Smith with his specific strength and rhetoric in his performances crafts the role of Father memorably. I particularly sympathized with his sweet dog that seems to perceive sometimes more than humans do. Basil Rathbone carries the restrain and appeal as Count Andreoni. Apart from them, there are two of the cast who, though given just a minimum time on the screen, and yet appear to be truly memorable: John Carradine as a seer who, in a haunting moment, foretells Domina's future and Tilly Losch as a dancer who, in her Salome-like lustful crush, provides the movie with one of the most erotic sequences ever found in motion picture. And finally, who contributes to the entertainment and mood are great extras who speak gibberish in the backdrop.

But who is in the lead? No one so much as the title garden of Allah itself with its endless attraction and cleanliness of catharsis, with its oases of fresh water and the heat of vast loneliness where you can hear the whisper of your inner self, the desert.

All is touched by the search of happiness that the protagonists struggle to find. The desert seems to be a perfect place for that target and yet...do they find it? The unforgettable finale seems to answer this question where the religious and the secular, where purity and desire reach the heights of their mutual, though fairy tale, collaboration. But if you seek something thought provoking, search for it elsewhere...enjoy the visuals and performances offered by THE GARDEN OF ALLAH.

Audiences back in 1936 must have been stunned at what they were watching: a full-fledged, beautiful full-length Technicolor film. I can't say for sure, but this might have been the first one (3-strip). At any rate, it still looks beautiful over 70 years later on DVD. In fact, just how good it looks is amazing.

Kudos for that have to go out to Director Richard Boleslowski, Director Of Photography Virgil Miller, Selznick International Pictures and, for the DVD - MGM Home Entertainment. All of them combined to give us one of the best-looking films of the classic-era age.

I thought the story was so-so: excellent in the first half, stagnant in the second. It gave a nice message in the end, even though a lot of people might not have been happy with it. I can't say more without spoiling things.

Marlene Dietrich never looked better, I don't believe, and certainly never played such a soft-hearted character ("Domini Enfilden"). Heart-throb Charles Boyer was the male star and Domini's object of affection, but some of the minor characters were the most interesting to me. People like Joseph Schildkraut as "Batouch;" John Carradine as "The Sand Diviner;" The most memorable, to me at least, was the dancer "Irena," played by Tilly Losch. Wow, there is a face and a dance you won't soon forget! I've never seen anything like it in the thousands of films I've viewed. Just seeing her do her thing was worth the price of the DVD. Looking at her IMDb resume, she was only in four movies, but they were all well-known films.

Basil Rathbone, the actor who really became famous for playing "Sherlock Holmes," also is in here as is C. Aubrey Smith, another famous British actor of his day. Schildkraut, by the way, will be recognized by classic film buffs as the man who played the arrogant sales clerk in the big hit, "The Shop Around The Corner," with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan.

The beautiful direction, photography and color, and Tilly's dance, are the things I'll remember best about this movie which is a lot of good and not-so-good things all rolled into one. Had the last half hour been better - although I admire the ending - I would have rated it even higher. It's definitely one film collectors want to add to their collection.

Whatever was Selznick thinking when he wasted so much gorgeous Technicolor photography on so much tripe? For a producer renowned for elevated the level of adult entertainment in the 1930's, it's shocking to see him select a script designed to appeal to the 3-year-old romantic in all of us. Not even the powerhouse leads can save this sandblown mess: Boyer's customary sincerity and craft is subverted by the preponderance of pretty-boy glamour shots that rival even those of Dietrich, and by the script's demands that he engage in silent-film "face acting" which was wildly inappropriate in the mid-30's, albeit even for characters experiencing spiritual crises. (However, the manful and professional way in which he handles these indignities is quite admirable.) And, Marlene's contempt for the proceedings fairly radiates from her porcelain mask of a face (which is no mean feat!); all the diaphonous gowns in the world can't disguise her phoned-in performance. She reportedly hated the sweltering location filming, causing her to fix her hair with bottles of hairspray, improbably turning it into a rigid helmet in the desert winds! (In all fairness to her, though, this must have been a difficult film for her, for she was in the midst of grieving for John Gilbert, who was to have taken the Boyer role.) Bottom line: savor the glorious, original Technicolor shots, and chuckle at the tacky dramatics.