Cortigiana

Or was that the publicity line for some other MGM picture with the king of their lot?

Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise is taken from the David Graham Phillips novel of the same name and in this 77 minute film hardly any of the story gets to be told. Probably a lot was left on the cutting room floor of MGM and you have to be able to bridge some gaps if you haven't read the book.

The book itself was published posthumously in 1917 six years after its author was killed by a disgruntled reader of his work. I'm guessing it was written years earlier because it's attitudes and subject matter were distinctly Victorian. Greta Garbo plays the daughter of Jean Hersholt who wants to sell her in marriage to the local lout played by Alan Hale. One thing that was interesting was seeing both of those players in unlikely unsympathetic parts.

She flees Hersholt's farm in the rain and gets taken in by Clark Gable who's renting the cabin on the lake down the road. The romance kindles, but Gable has to make a quick trip to town, meanwhile Hersholt and Hale come looking for Garbo and she flees again.

Garbo gets taken by some carnival people including the wolfish owner, John Miljan, whom she submits to. When Gable finds her, his attitude is most Victorian. In fact the rest of the film through their respective ups and downs Gable and Garbo do a lot to hurt each other.

Susan Lenox is one heavy handed melodrama and no one would remember it at all today, but for the fact it was the one and only teaming of Gable and Garbo. Being paired with Garbo was a big milestone for Clark Gable. Also he was not paying thugs any longer, charismatic thugs, but thugs nonetheless. He was leading man material after this film.

It only gets as much as six stars from me because of the cast.

GRETA GARBO fans will undoubtedly forgive the screenplay which has Greta and CLARK GABLE romantically involved in an on again/off again relationship that is the basis for the whole movie. And, of course, Garbo's favorite cinematographer, William Daniels, is behind the camera making sure that she gets her fair share of lush close-ups.

It starts out promisingly enough as a Gothic melodrama with Garbo fleeing the advances of a drunken fiancé ALAN HALE and rushing out into the storm. She seeks shelter in a barn but is discovered by CLARK GABLE who promptly takes a shine to her and invites her to take shelter under his roof. The opening scenes with Garbo and Gable have an innocent charm that makes them delightful to watch, with Gable giving a more natural performance than Garbo who already has a bag of transparent acting tricks.

The plot thickens when Susan Lenox is forced to flee Gable's residence when her strict father and fiancé show up to bring her home. She ends up taking refuge on a circus train and ends up being "kept" by one of the managers. When she's reunited with Gable, it begins a series of misunderstandings. Garbo plays her role like the real diva she was, even pronouncing Gable's name--"Rodney"--in a melodramatic way.

It's strictly downhill into pulp romance territory for the rest of the way. It's Gable who gives one of his most likable performances and sustains interest in the story's development--not Garbo.

Summing up: Only for die-hard Garbo fans. Noteworthy for a very fine beginning which soon lapses into mediocrity.

The first twenty or so minutes of this film is about as good as you can find for Greta Garbo and Clark Gable. When poor little Greta is forced to run from her abusive and cold home, the movie really becomes marvelous as the relationship between Garbo and Gable begins. During all this time, the cinematography is tops, with wonderful camera-work, lighting and composition. And, the romance between the leads is really compelling and beautiful. However, after this wonderful start, the film quickly falls apart. Through a series of misunderstandings, the lovers inexplicably become cold and angry towards each other--and after such a great start, this really makes no sense at all! Then, for the rest of the film, we see Clark and Greta periodically "stumbling upon each other" and then mistreating each other even though EVERYONE watching the film knows they really love each other and KNOWS they will ultimately admit this to each other. So, you KNOW what will happen and there is no suspense at all--NONE! It's really sad when a film starts off so well and then fizzles into a dull and predictable mess that could have simply been handled if either Garbo or Gable had just said "let's stop the bickering and marry--after all, YOU know and I know that it's meant to be!". But, for some odd reason, the writers want us to just assume the leads are too stupid and too proud to admit it. Gimme a break!

This film could be summarized as 'just another Garbo redemption yarn'... well, it is and it isn't. If you're familiar with the Garbo films (silents & talkies), you'll find yourself knowing the script before it happens onscreen, so, yes, indeed, Garbo will fall first then unwillingly rise from the gutter, sit on top of the world, then fall again, willingly or not. Some have written very intelligent lines on the subject (Mick Lasalle in 'Complicated Women' for instance) so I won't ad lib on this.

But this particular film adds another element: its photography. Splendid throughout all of Susan's cahotic life, the images crafted by Bill Daniels are simply amazing and on par with any Sternberg film - yes, that good. I can't remember precisely at the moment but the film was almost entirely redone before being released, either by R.Z. Leonard or by somebody else and R.Z. kept the credit...

Whatever. If script-wise quite predictable, this film should be seen if only for the sake of its images. Also, Garbo gives a performance worthy of the one she had in Grand Hotel - glimpses of eternity perhaps.

Too bad the big guys think this one's not worth more than a crappy VHS - photography on this level IS art... And Garbo's face eludes all possible descriptions.

Maybe the novel had substance, but as boiled down by a team of MGM hacks the script comes off as silly women's-magazine stuff. Garbo escapes an arranged marriage to a brute, meets Gable, is forced to run away and join the circus (!), is spurned by Gable through a misunderstanding, swears revenge on him but still loves him, just happens to run into him again in a hard-drinking south-of-the-border backwater... you get the idea. There's never any doubt as to the outcome, but surely they could have come up with more of an ending than the one here, where both characters give in to each other more out of exhaustion than anything else.

Garbo is, as expected, faultless -- intuitive, honest, and at the peak of her beauty. Lovingly lit by her favorite cameraman, William Daniels, she's magnetic even when forced into hackneyed situations and purple dialogue. The director, Robert Z. Leonard, plays some interesting Freudian tricks -- the shadows are deep and symbolic, and most of the male characters seem to be carrying sticks of one sort or another. Without Garbo it would be typical early-talkie MGM junk, but she lends dignity and distinctiveness even to boilerplate stuff like this.