Anna Christie

Chris is a sailor who owns a coal barge. He finds out that the daughter he hasn't seen since she was an infant, Anna (Greta Garbo), is coming to see him. What he doesn't know is that she had a childhood of abuse and molestation followed by her running away to St. Paul and becoming a prostitute. He says he left her in Minnesota for her own good, to grow up on a farm, but it seems the truth of the matter is that he just couldn't be bothered. As most such men do, he's very interested in his neglected child now that he's old and she's grown. One night Chris and Anna are out on his barge and rescue several sailors. Among them is Matt (Charles Bickford), an Irishman who takes a shine to Anna. But she's still struggling with her past. Complications ensue.

MGM was the only studio Greta Garbo ever worked for in America, and as a studio, MGM was late to the game of talking film. MGM was aware of the risk of putting Garbo before the microphones, and so they delayed her talking debut until 1930, and she actually made the last silent film MGM ever made. But making her character someone who grew up around Swedish Americans in Minnesota explains her accent and it suits her.

Anna Christie, like so many early talking films, is too talkie. Everybody, even tertiary characters, have endless dialogue. Everything is static. By this time the static camera was not such a problem, so I don't know why this comes off as a filmed play.

Garbo, who was always a film actress, seems to get acting in a sound film just fine, even if she does over-emote at times, as though she's still in a silent film and nobody can hear her. Bickford is a bit of a mystery though. He was a stage actor before sound came to films, yet you'd never know that by watching this. He'd made three films before this one - all with sound - so I have no idea what the problem was.

The one really bright spot here? Marie Dressler. She plays Chris's mistress and a former prostitute. Upon meeting Anna, she immediately figures out that Anna belongs to her union, so to speak, but she doesn't give Anna away. Marie Dressler is doing some outrageously good acting here. Her ability to make magic out of plain life jump-started her career.

I'd say this is worth your while for its place in film history.

78 years ago...the premiere of "Anna Christie" advertised by the slogan "Garbo Talks!" The film runs for 16 minutes and the viewers reach the climax of curiosity: Greta enters the bar and gets through a long awaited transfer from silence into sound: a few seconds closing her silent era and, at last, Greta Garbo says a historic line: "Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side and don't be stingy, baby!"

"Anna Christie" (1930) is the movie by Clarence Brown that introduced a great silent star Greta Garbo to talkies. Nowadays, we can only imagine what serious transfer it was for actors and actresses. The careers of many were bound to end - something we hardly or not at all see at present. And it was no coincidence that it was Clarence Brown who directed the first talkie with the Swedish beauty. Garbo trusted the director after two of his great silent productions, FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1926) and A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS (1928): movies that achieved a smashing success at the box office, both with Garbo in the lead.

But we are in 2008 and that fact about the movie, now purely historical, appears to be of minor importance. The question for today's viewer is not what Garbo's voice sounds like but if the movie is still watchable after these 78 years. In other words, we all strive to answer the question if the movie has stood a test of time. Has it?

When I recently watched it, I came into conclusion that, except for some minor technical aspects, including static camera, "Anna Christie" is still very entertaining. It's, on the one hand, a wonderful story of a life, of a reality that the young woman faces (being based on Eugene O"Neill's play), and, on the other hand, an artistic manifestation of true magnificence in the field of direction and acting. Let me analyze these two aspects in separate paragraphs.

CONTENT: Chris Christopherson (George F Marion), a heavy drinker, lives a life of a sailor, on a barge. Although his days are filled with sorrows, he is consoled by a letter from his daughter Anna (Garbo) whom he hasn't seen for 15 years. She says that she will come back to him. He starts to change everything for better; however forgets that his daughter is no longer a child lacking experience but a 23 year-old woman who has got through various sorts of things on a farm in Minnessota where she lived and worked. Moreover, he forgets that she has a right to accept another kind of male love in her life... This brief presentation of the content not from the perspective of the main character but the one which is introduced to us sooner than Anna (her father Chris) makes you realize how universal it is. Simply no letter from the whole text that life appears to be has been erased after all these years. Cases discussed here in 1930 are still meaningful and valid...

PERFORMANCES. There are not many characters in the movie, but there are two that really shine in the roles. It is of course Greta Garbo herself who did something extraordinary in her 15 year-long phenomenon, the presence that strongly marked the history of early cinema (something I have already discussed in many of my earlier comments on her films). But here, Garbo is slightly different. I admit that there are moments in this movie when she does not feel very comfortable with her role. That seems to be caused by her new experience with sound in English; however, her performance is, as always, genuine and unique. But that is what everyone has expected from Garbo. The true surprise of the movie for the 1930 viewers and also for us is Marie Dressler as Marthy. She is excellent in her facial expressions, in her accent, in the entire portrayal of a drinking woman who looks at life from the perspective of "hitting the bottle." Her best moments include the conversation with Anna Christie in the bar preceded by her hilarious talk with Chris. The rest of the supporting cast are fine yet not great whatsoever (here the German version makes up for it). Particularly Dressler, except for Garbo herself, constitutes an absolutely flawless choice.

If you asked me what I like about "Anna Christie" nowadays, that's what I would tell you: it's a classic movie. However, there is one more thing that I must mention at the end. It is humor, wonderful wit that is noticeable throughout. Although the content is quite serious and "Anna Christie" in no way carries a comedian spirit (the only Garbo's comedy was NINOTCHKA), there are such moments when you will split your sides. Don't skip, for instance, Anna and Matt's visit in the fun park, particularly at the restaurant where he orders milk for her thinking how virtuous and innocent she is, beer for himself and where suddenly Marthy joins them by chance...

"Anna Christie" is a perfect movie for classic buffs and a must see for all at least a bit interested in the true magnificence of performance. If you are fed up with many of those modern starlets, seek such movies out and you shall be satisfied. Very worth your search!

Skaal Greta Garbo! Skaal Marie Dressler! Let us drink a toast to the great jobs you did in the movie! Skaal after all these years when wine tastes much better and your spirits are with us in a different sense...

Garbo's first speaking line, and it must have been thrilling to have such a tremendous foreign star able to make that transition from silent to sound.

The movie is "Annie Christie," the year is 1930, and it is an adaptation of the play by Eugene O'Neill. It concerns a young farm woman, Anna, from Minnesota who comes to New York to find her father, whom she hasn't seen in 15 years. Molested some time earlier, she hates men and has prostituted herself.

Her father takes her on his barge, and she comes to love the sea. One day, they rescue a young man (Charles Bickford), and he and Anna fall in love. However, neither he nor her father know anything of her past.

Garbo is very beautiful and her command of English is amazing. You can tell that she understands every word she is saying, just as you can tell when some actors have learned their role by rote. She acquits herself very well.

Marie Dressler as Marthy, a friend of her father's whom Anna meets in a bar, is marvelous, playing each scene as a drunk. And you really think she is. As someone wrote, you can smell the alcohol on her breath.

That's the good news. The bad news is that this is a very difficult film to watch. Sound and dealing with the camera when you have sound was all very new. The camera didn't move around so it is a very static movie. The actors have several scenes where they all talk at once.

An acting teacher once said, "Eugene O'Neill was our greatest novelist." The actors don't just talk at once, they talk incessantly. There is no action to be had.

I love Eugene O'Neill, I have seen his plays on stage. This film is 85 years old, and it shows.

Definitely worth seeing, however. After all, "Garbo talks!"

Garbo's first spoken words in this 1930 film electrified audiences and became part of Hollywood legend. Garbo had become a star in her first American film, The Torrent, in 1926. And audiences waited til this film to see if Garbo could make the transition to talkies. She did. And while Pola Negri, Vilma Banky, and Renee Adoree fell by the wayside because of their accents, Garbo sailed on for another decade. Despite the staginess of this film, Garbo is really excellent, especially in the opening scene with the equally great Marie Dressler as Marthy. The two great stars trade dirty looks and sharp words as they size each other up while they have a few drinks and set the tone for the remainder of the film. Garbo was 25; Dressler was 60. Charles Bickford is OK as Matt, and George F. Marion is good as Old Chris. Marion originated this role on Broadway in 1922 and also played it in the 1923 silent version with Blanche Sweet. This Eugene O'Neill play is a true classic yet, oddly, was never filmed again. Anna Christie ranks as one of Garbo's greatest performances. And despite the staginess of the film and the grimness of the story, she is truly a marvel. See this one for Garbo and Dressler!

A woman with a past returns to her alcoholic father living on a shabby boat and falls in love with a sailor.

A deliberately grim movie gained fame as Garbo's first talkie (revealing her warm, silky deep voice), and was simultaneously made in Germany - from a well-known O'Neill play. This version now seems pretty stilted and shows the most typical mistakes of early talkies, but full of vivid moments of great power, full-blooded performances (especially the genial interplay between Garbo and Dressler)and the rare Hollywood quality of gritty realism.