The Garden of Allah

If you did "The Garden of Allah" today, you'd have to play it for camp. As produced in 1936, it nearly is anyway.

Marlene Dietrich, Charles Boyer, Basil Rathbone, C. Aubrey Smith, and Joseph Schildkraut star in this David O. Selznick Technicolor production. The story concerns a religious woman, Domini, who is in mourning for her father and visits the convent where she lived as a child. The Mother Superior encourages her to go out and live, as she was her father's caretaker and didn't get out into the world.

She meets Boris Androvsky, and he seems even more unfamiliar with the world than she. What she doesn't know is that he was a Trappist monk and has left the order. The two fall in love and marry. However, someone eventually recognizes him, and his secret is revealed.

I have to say, I feel sorry for any ex-Trappist monk running into gorgeous Marlene Dietrich, especially under a desert sky. The atmosphere of this film is very moody, the color beautiful, and the photography sensational. Filmed in California and Arizona, it looks for all the world like an exotic desert setting.

Even with all this, and a young, handsome Charles Boyer, the film comes off as melodramatic and slight. Partly I blame the overly-dramatic music, but let's face it, the script isn't very good.

Marlene Dietrich is very good and underplays her role; Boyer's role is really impossible. He's confused and miserable through most of it. He was an excellent actor and pulls it off, though. Rathbone doesn't have a big role, nor does Schildkraut, but they were two of the best character actors around.

"The Garden of Allah" is definitely worth seeing - it's wonderful to look at, and when you see the Cyndi Lauper video of "Time after Time," this is the film she was watching in the beginning of the song.

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.

Domini (Marlene Dietrich) is a rich woman who has spent many years taking care of her ailing father. When he finally dies, she realizes that she has missed much in her own life, and sets out to North Africa to find herself. Boris (Charles Boyer) is a Trappist monk who has taken vows of poverty and silence, but he can no longer bear the burden of either, and so he heads to North Africa to find himself. The two spiritually conflicted people meet and fall in love, but their sad ending is foretold.

This was a wild mix of beauty and camp that will appeal to some viewers but leave others rolling their eyes in disbelief. I can't recall many films of this period that were as openly spiritual and as concerned with the burdens of the soul, and yet the two leads are among the most vain and superficial of movie stars, both with acting talent, but both better known for their looks than their depth. Dietrich especially looks more like a studio creation than a living human, with her almost comical artificial eyebrows and professional-grade makeup design.

The movie looks amazing, a word that perhaps gets overused in amateur criticism, but it is most deservedly used here. The color cinematography, coupled with masterly use of shadow and color, and terrific use of locations, create a film that is a joy to behold even if the story and performances may leave you cold. There's a sequence early in the film involving dancer Tilly Losch as a local Arab dancing girl that made me think I had mistakenly wandered into a Maria Montez camp classic (that's a good thing). Schildkraut as a shady Arab, Brandon as his companion, and Carradine as a creepy street person promising psychic readings, are all enjoyable. This earned a pair of Oscar nominations, for Best Assistant Director (Eric Stacey) and Best Music - Score (Max Steiner), and won a special honorary Oscar for the color cinematography (W. Howard Greene & Harold Rosson).

This is, I believe, only the second movie to be made in the gloriously new three-strip Technicolor process, and it must be said that cinematographer Howard Greene and Selznick's always reliable crew of art directors turned in a stunning performance. At a time when color was not well understood by most technicians, these guys pulled off a virtuoso turn. The thing looks fabulous from end to end; lovely desert shots under all kinds of lighting conditions, and a generally underplayed and painterly use of color.

Then there is the music: one of Max Steiner's most magical scores, although unfortunately renters of the video will not quite be able to appreciate it as it deserves to be. Max wrote nearly two hours of music for what turned out to be a 79 minute picture; a good deal of it was lost and Selznick's sound engineers had a tendency to mix it under in such a way that its distinctiveness is much muted. This problem is exacerbated in the usually reliable Anchor Bay's VHS issue; they went overboard with the noise reduction filters and the result in many places is a blurry mush that does scant justice to Steiner's often piquant scoring. (Later: In the DVD this has been largely rectified). Some of the best passages were left on the cutting room floor altogether... All of this visual and audible loveliness has been lavished on a story of truly astonishing triviality, which is a pity, as the Robert Hichens novel had rather more depth. (Count Antioni, for instance, is a converted Muslim in the book; but 1936 Hollywood would not tolerate that. Would they today, I wonder?) Marlene Dietrich has to be the only woman on earth who would wander about the uncharted depths of the Sahara in high heels and a Travis Banton silk confection of a gown; the most horrendous sandstorms fail to displace a single hair of her coiffure. Charles Boyer strives manfully with awful dialogue and almost brings it off. Second tier characters like Joseph Schildkraut and the ever stalwart C. Aubrey Smith fare better, and Basil Rathbone is always good to see. Tilly Losch's hoochie- koochie dance in the Arab dive is positively embarrassing. The whole thing was definitely a miscalculation on Selznick's part, and he lost a bundle. Nevertheless it is well worth a look if you are a student of early color. Film music aficionados will have to take my word for it on the superb qualities of the score; the existing movie barely hints at them. This music cries out for a good new recording, like the many others that are coming out these days of classic picture scores.

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.