Le Voile des illusions

Garbo is luminous in this adaptation of the Somerset Maugham story "The Painted Veil." It's a beautiful, lavish production with great direction from Clarence Brown. The story is a nice adaptation, if truncated. The stars are in especially fine form. George Brent plays a convincing cad. Herbert Marshall is in the role he always played best, as the sincere and kind, but neglected, husband. Other reviewers who noted the morality of the story are correct--this is one of those films which inspires those who watch it to be good people. The moving love story wins the viewer over by the end of the film.

The score and cinematography were lush. The Asian sets were intriguingly exotic and fun to look at. Also interesting were the title scenes at the beginning of the film, in which the name GARBO stays behind the credits. Truly indicative of the heights Garbo's star power had reached by the time THE PAINTED VEIL was released!

This film has some rather fantastic elements about it, mainly that Greta Garbo would be playing a spinster, and that having several suitors - as her mother claims that she has - she would hastily accept a marriage proposal from someone for whom she has absolutely no passion. In this case it is Herbert Marshall playing both an unloved husband and a devoted medical researcher into the cause and prevention of cholera. The other fantastic element is trying to believe that there is any chemistry between Garbo and "the other man, George Brent. Brent - who was so wonderful with Kay Francis, Bette Davis, and Ruth Chatterton - is here no more attractive than the husband he is trying to supplant. He has all the chemistry of a cardboard box.

The best part of the film is once Marshall realizes he has been cuckolded and makes an ultimatum to his faithless wife. He has just learned of a raging cholera epidemic in inland China and must go there and try to get it under control. His wife can stay behind if Brent's character agrees to get a divorce, in which case she can also have one. If he does not agree to this, then Garbo must come along with him on his expedition and thus be exposed to the most extreme danger.

This was one of Garbo's first films after the production code came into effect earlier in 1934. There were so many limits put on what could be said and shown and even insinuated that it really put a damper on what was supposed to be a pretty torrid love triangle. Trying to perform in a moral straight jacket is probably what really cost this film its potential edge. I'd recommend this for Garbo completists only.

Based on a book by W. Somerset Maugham of the same name, The Painted Veil tells the tale of Katrin Koerber (Greta Garbo) who is lonely after her sister's marriage, with whom she was very close. She agrees to marry her father's research associate Dr. Walter Fane (Herbert Marshall) who takes her to China. However, he is deeply involved with his work and often neglects Katrin in favour of his work which leads her to seek love and attention from another man: Jack Townsend (George Brent).

Although I have been unsure of Garbo's acting abilities at times, she does well and truly shine in the role of the unfaithful and confused wife - a complex character which she masters with ease. Herbert Marshall does a good job of her husband caught between emotions and George Brent – not a terribly good looking man – was unconvincing as her lover. These two men seem to fade into the background when Garbo is on screen – her exotic; cat like appearance really captures the audience – despite not playing a glamorous character!

The scenery of old China is lavish and the costumes for Garbo are a pleasure to see. However, the divine Greta Garbo is the only thing that really makes The Painted Veil watchable. The plot is thin and weak but Garbo does a wonderful job and makes the melodramatic material believable and interesting. Not a great film, but watch it for Garbo.

Married to a distracted English scientist, a beautiful Austrian finds forbidden love beyond THE PAINTED VEIL in China.

Based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham, this MGM film is soap opera of a high order, featuring excellent production values & acting. The dialogue is also refreshingly literate & thoughtful, something of a surprise in a film which might be pigeonholed as just an elaborate potboiler.

Fascinating as always, Greta Garbo is at last showcased in a film whose backdrop & setting matches her for exoticism. Enervated by the overwhelming cultural saturation of pre-war China, she seems freed to be essentially herself - shorn of all needs to bewitch - and is able to give herself over to the seriousness & drama of her character's dilemma. What the viewer is left with is one of her best performances.

The two men in Garbo's life are excellently portrayed by Herbert Marshall & George Brent. Neither characters are without faults, but the actors make them intimately human, revealing some of the loneliness in each man's heart. These actors had distinct similarities, making it something of a bold move for MGM to put them in the same film, but also enabling the viewer to understand why Garbo could love both.

Excellent support is given by gentle Jean Hersholt as Garbo's kindly father; Forrester Harvey as a happy-go-lucky embassy employee in China & Warner Oland as a sympathetic Chinese general.

Movie mavens will recognize Keye Luke as a young doctor and Mary Forbes & Ethel Griffies as British ladies in Hong Kong - all uncredited.

The Chinese scenes show MGM at what it did best - creating another world, utterly realistic, in its back lot.

GARBO...the five-letter name, synonymous with glamour and mystery, fills the screen and overwhelms the film's title and the rest of the cast. The legendary actress, Greta Garbo, warranted the outsize billing, and her glowing image dominates this romantic triangle based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Dr. Walter Fane is a research assistant in Austria, and he harbors romantic intentions for Katrin, the daughter of his superior. Summoning the courage to propose, Fane quickly weds Katrin, and the pair head to China, where Fane's friend, Jack Townsend from the British embassy, aggressively courts the often neglected Katrin. Further complications ensue when a cholera epidemic breaks out, and Fane insists that Katrin accompany him further into the Chinese interior, where she will be separated from Townsend, and he will fight the disease.

As Katrin, Garbo is luminescent. No surprise as to why, because she was photographed by William H. Daniels, who lensed 21 Garbo films, and was garbed by Adrian, who dressed her in some of her greatest roles. The screen goddess, a moniker the actress richly merits, is flawless in dress or image, whether profile or three-quarter view, close-up or full figure. When she quickly wraps a white scarf around her hair to go out, she emerges as pure elegance in full length white attire. Displaying all the mannerisms that her audience adored, from the fluttering eyelids and raised eyebrows to the subtle trembling of her mouth, Garbo is reason enough to see "The Painted Veil." Whether watching a Chinese pageant that resembles an act from the Ziegfeld Follies or running through streets filled with panicked Chinese, Garbo's makeup is pristine, her clothing spotless, and her air poised. The term "star" was coined for a screen presence such as hers.

Not surprisingly, Garbo's two male co-stars in the film pale in comparison. While neither Herbert Marshall nor George Brent were particularly memorable actors, they were often paired with strong actresses like Garbo or Bette Davis that unfairly cast them into the shadows. However, both Marshall and Brent were skilled and acquit themselves well here, although cognizant that audiences were there to see Garbo and not them. Whatever merits the Maugham novel possesses, the film's brief 85-minute running time is rushed, and motivations are not particularly convincing. The Marshall-Garbo marriage seems arbitrary and loveless from the start, and Townsend's pursuit of his friend's wife is a cold-hearted stab in the back. However, audiences did not come to analyze the characters or the plot, they came to see Garbo, and she gloriously commands attention in "The Painted Veil."