Camille

When you think of the lavish 30s films of MGM, Camille is near the top of the list. Great story and flawless production here boasting perhaps the most shimmering of Greta Garbo's ethereal performances as Marguerita Gautier (Camille). Familiar and much filmed story, this is nevertheless the best of them all. Matching Garbor is the hopelessly romantic Robert Taylor in his best 30s role. Also good are Lionel Barrymore, Henry Daniell, and Jessie Ralph as the maid. Great comic relief is provided by Laura Hope Crews (Prudence)and Lenore Ulric (Olympe)--what a pair of vultures! But the center of this gorgeous film is Garbo. She is so frail looking, her voice so soft. Garbo plays Marguerite as a frailty incarnate. She never overacts the part as most do with the endless coughing and fainting. One of George Cukor's triumphs. Rex O'Malley and Elizabeth Allan are dull but have small parts. I also spotted Eily Malyon and Zeffie Tilbury, and Joan Leslie is listed in the credits. I think this is Garbo's best performance, but she lost the Oscar to Luise Rainer for The Good Earth. Also nominated that year: Irene Dunne (The Awful Truth), Barbara Stanwyck (Stella Dallas), and Janet Gaynor (A Star Is Born). Wow----how could you choose just one?

Camille (1936)

This melodramatic tale of true life in the face of the strictures of social reality is tried and true. You feel for both the male lead (Robert Taylor, who is quite good) and the female (Grate Garbo, of course, who is excellent). That's the whole point. These are two people who are not quite appropriate because they come from different social levels, but there is a sense they could make it work if they wanted to.

But outside forces get in the way. Chief among them is the man's father, who wants to save his son from a marriage that will ruin both husband and wife. This is a key role in the film, and a critical if brief 10 minutes or so. The father is played, importantly, by Lionel Barrymore, who does little else int he movie. But here he makes his case to the Garbo with amazing force. It's a great scene, even if you wish Garbo would leap up and say, no, no, I'm going to follow my heart.

But exactly what happens is what the movie is about. The rules of the culture of the time (1800s France) prevent an honest sense of two people marrying out of simple love for one another. In a way, that's the whole point of continuing the old Dumas story, which has resonated for decades into the Hollywood era. I'm not sure it would work now, except as an historical drama. This is set in the period (around 1850) and feels legit. Unlike the curious (and not bad) 1921 silent version, which sets it in a 1920s culture, this one transports us back to the original. Fair enough!

There is a contrived quality to the plot, for sure, partly because of its origins. While this doesn't ruin the whole enterprise, there is a slight feeling of being led along the whole time. Garbo and Taylor are both terrific, however, and we feel some honesty to their feelings for one another. It's on that basis that the movie works. And it really does, even through the over the top drama in the last scene. Moving and beautiful overall.

Maybe it helps to be a romantic. But for my money, this is the greatest romance that was ever put on film. It has the perfect stars. Greta Garbo was the star of the age--any age--still beautiful and absolutely created to act in films. Even in silent films, her acting is measured and understated. She never falls prey to exaggeration nor pretense. I think that is the secret to her effectiveness. Allow me an example: after accepting money from Baron de Varville for a disguised outing with her lover Armand (which the Baron already suspects), she kisses him gently on the cheek only to be reviled with a harsh slap from the baron, who then departs. The camera moves in on that incomparable face. The head slowly lowers, the lips slightly part, a low moan expresses the guilt, shame and humiliation which momentarily consume her. Then she spies the money clutched tightly in her hand. Recognizing she now has the means to escape with her lover, a slight smile emerges reflecting her change of mood and restored joy. It is a scene like no other.

As for her co-star, Robert Taylor was castigated as being too callow for the role. In fact, most critics today realize he was exactly what Dumas intended: young, impressionable--and certainly irresistibly gorgeous in his dewy youth. That beauty often caused the young Taylor undeserved venom from the critics. He was a very capable actor and probably set the standard for the contemporary romantic leading man we see even today. Rumors that Garbo dismissed him as unimportant are not true. She liked him very much and was greatly impressed after he sent her mother flowers when they all attended the premiere of CAMILLE in Stockholm.

CAMILLE? A great movie with a great cast, including the marvelous Henry Daniell, whose Baron de Varville is very Jekyll and Hyde. I encourage anyone to see it. It is one of the finest films of the 20th Century.

This film further proves that the assembly-line system of Hollywood studios back then should also be taken seriously in terms of artistry. Just because movies were produced run-of-the-mill doesn't mean that they weren't paid critical attention to by their makers. The usual impression on studio-era Hollywood is: take a formulaic narrative style, maybe adapt a stage play for the screen, blend in a handful of stars from the stable and the films rake in the profit at the box office. Not quite, that's the easy perception. George Cukor, another of those versatile directors, made it apparent with Camille that filmmaking as an art may still flourish despite (and even within) certain parameters. Camille is beautiful, in so many respects. And it's not just because of Greta Garbo.

Sure, the acting is amazing, the casting is perfect. Garbo is luminous, mysterious, cruel, and weak at the same time. Robert Taylor surrenders himself to be the heartbreakingly young and vulnerable Armand. Henry Daniell's coldness and sadism is utterly human and familiar. The others are just plain wonderful. The writing contains so much wit and humor, devotion and pain - but it never overstates anything. The rapport and tensions between lovers, friends, and enemies are palpable and consistent. The actions flow so naturally, just like every scene, that checking for historical inconsistencies seem far beside the point.

There is so much that I love about Camille that it's hard to enumerate them all, but with every little discovery comes the realization that this is "but" a studio production, so it makes the experience more exquisite. Camille is a gentle, poignant romantic movie that, like Garbo, takes its place delicately and self-effacingly in the history of American cinema, but makes itself indelible in the heart and mind of the lovelorn individual viewer.

Alexander Dumas fils, the author of "La dame aux camelias", created a powerful novel that has been made into an opera, "La Traviata", as well as a play and this film just titled "Camille". The story of Marguerite Gautier, the famous Parisian courtesan has moved audiences since it first came out in France.

George Cukor seems to have been the obvious choice for directing this adaptation of the book. Mr. Cukor had a great eye for detail, as well as for guiding his female stars into performances that defined a lot of careers in the movies. He was not strange to working with the divine Ms. Garbo, and their collaboration in this film seems to have been a match made in heaven.

The film clearly belongs to Greta Garbo who, as Marguerite Gautier, runs away with the film. This seems to be a role tailor-made for the star. It's without a doubt one of her best screen portrayals. Ms. Garbo clearly understood this woman, who is tormented into resigning the man she loved when his father comes to her to ask the famous courtesan to have pity on his family and to let the young man go free.

The selection of Robert Taylor to play Armand Duval was a coup for the studio and for the production. Mr. Taylor, who went to be one of the favorite stars at MGM exuded charm and seems to have had no problems playing opposite Greta Garbo. In fact, Robert Taylor contribution to the film is enormous.

This film has always been a perennial favorite among fans of Greta Garbo. We remember seeing it at MOMA with a rapt crowd that applauded so loud at the end of the screening for what seemed to be forever.

The supporting cast is excellent as anything that was assembled by MGM. Lionel Barrymore is seen as Monsieur Duval, Armand's father who pleads with Marguerite to let his son go. Henry Daniell plays the Baron de Varville with great style.

William Daniels was the cinematographer. He clearly understood how to photograph Ms. Garbo and he is at his best in this film. The great art direction by Cedric Gibbons shows what this man was capable of doing. The screen play shows such names as James Hilton, Zoe Akins and Frances Marion among the writers.

"Camille" is a film that will live forever thanks to the luminous Greta Garbo and the inspired direction of George Cukor.