Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane

Here is a movie that has been topping a number of lists as best movie ever made.

So, this is as good as it gets.

The question is, is it that good? Does it warrant this glorified position as top dog among films?

This was basically the question I went into this movie with. Not particularly fair if you just want to enjoy the film, but difficult to avoid when you get a movie with these accreditations. With such expectations it is too easy to disappoint because it is up against some very difficult odds.

Let me say right away that this is a very different movie. I have seen nothing like this picture going through the list up to this point. Though many of the elements have been copied in pictures since, back then in 1941 this was really new thinking. A film that is basically a portrait of a man that many people knew of but very few people really knew. We see him from all sorts of angles: the official angle in a mock-up newsreel doing a documentary portrait upon his death, the bitter words of his guardian who describes him as an irresponsible rebel, the trusted employee to whom he was a genius and enigma, the bitter friend with whom he had a fallout, the former wife who saw him dissolve and the butler who was there when he died.

Every time we change angle we get a new tone and a different facet to the person and gradually we get to know him.

The agent of this storytelling is a journalist doing his necrology who has been charged with a mystery: What was the meaning of his last word “Rosebud”? His search takes him through all the above contact points and gradually he learns the story of Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), the newspaper magnate, an early Rupert Murdoch, whom everybody knew, yet was an enigma to the public.

The quest is in vain. We never learn the meaning of “Rosebud”, but we learn so many other things that the question becomes irrelevant because this is a life story far beyond the ordinary.

This is what makes “Citizen Kane” special and remembered. An entirely new form of storytelling.

Another point in favor of this film is the filming and cutting itself. There are lots of interesting angles, from below, from above, in a distance, beneath giant paintings or posters demonstrating how the image (and ego) of this giant dwarfs the people around him. The picture jumps days, months, years, even lifetimes in a single cut and we go back and forth in time in a way that makes “Daybreak” from 39 look amateurish. That is dazzlingly well done.

Then we have the story itself, the life story of Charlie Kane. This is not a happy end story of a man who strive for his dream and get all he wanted, but instead the story of a man who could have had it all, but ended up losing everything he really wanted. I have been thinking a lot about this since last night when I saw the film, because at first it did not make sense to me. The first half of the film Kane is getting his fortune, then seeing a newspaper rise out of obscurity to become an empire, he gets a beautiful wife and runs for the position as governor representing the “working man” (read: the good guys”) against the corrupt elite. Everything is good. Then the story snaps and the rest is deroute. He has to abandon his political career at the doorstep of victory and he loses his wife and son (strangely we do not see his reaction when they die in a car accident). His new wife is an obvious miss and he seems frantic to pursue an imagined dream of hers. His friends are leaving him and he becomes isolated in his fortress in Florida surrounded by art and statues bought more or less at random in Europe. He dies a broken man.

What on Earth happened?

I think the closest I got to an answer is from his old (former) friend Leland. Kane craved loving, but he had no love to give. It became an obsession for him and he got into the habit of forcing the world to fit his head and that was exhilarating when he succeeded, but also blinded him because he never asked or really listened to what people actually wanted. It was always him him him.

That is a curious and not very common portrait and not usually a winning formula for a blockbuster.

On top of all this Kane may be a fictional character, but is modeled upon a real character that felt so targeted by the film that he sued Orson Welles ass off and practically ruined his career as a director. Talk about a Michael Moore moment.

Orson Welles had a special talent for the controversial. His radio drama “War of the Worlds” in 1938 was using the media so brilliantly that people thought the Earth was really being invaded by evil Martians. He told that story as news interruption into an otherwise ordinary music program and the radio station had to repeatedly calm the public that this was only fiction, we were not being invaded from space.

In “Citizen Kane” the tone is the same. This looks real, especially in the beginning and we could easily get the impression that we are talking about a real living (well, dead) character.

As mentioned earlier “Citizen Kane” has be copied from ever since to larger or smaller degree. I am particularly reminded of a Danish TV-series “Matador” from around 1980 that is focused around a character that in many ways remind of Charlie Kane. I can highly recommend that series.

So, is it the best movie ever? I would not stretch it that far. A lot of water has run under the bridge since then. But this is a very unique picture and a cinematic milestone and certainly a must see for anyone interested in movies.

 

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

Madame bliver forelsket

After a swath of social critique films with a slant on the heavy side I finish this Christmas special with a film much more suited for a New Year celebration. Away with all the concerns of the world, let us delve for a time in the world of the rich and careless, where you can get away with the most outrageous scams and laugh all the way to the bank.

“Trouble in Paradise” has to be one of the most charming films on the list. It is so difficult not to love it. I found myself chuckling all the way through it. Not slapping-my-knee-laughing, but a quiet chuckle and a big smile. It is that kind of movie.

It is a scam/heist story and so fall into a category that has been explored to death over the years. Usually their quality has been the complexity (Oceans Eleven), the action (The Italian Job), the comedy (The Pink Panther) or the insanity (A Fish Called Wanda). In the case of “Trouble in Paradise” the quality is Charm (capital C!). I just do not recall a more charming set of characters than what we get here.

Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) and Lily (Miriam Hopkins) are high society crooks who use their very well developed charm to insinuate themselves into the confidence of the rich and the über-rich and get away with a lot of money. Usually. The opening of the film is the story of how they met in Venice, pretending to be a baron and a countess and intending to rob each other. They succeed outrageously, revealing each other as crooks to their mutual pleasure. They draw out items they have plundered from each other and climax gloriously when he take out her garter. You just have to wonder how that happened, wink wink.  

In Venice we are also introduced to one half of the comedic sidekick, Francois Filiba (Edward Everett Horton). He and the Major (Charles Ruggles) are excellent all the way through. In Venice he has been robbed of 20.000 franc by Monescu, pretending to be a doctor examining his tonsils. We get a glorious scene where he is trying to explain the incident to the local Italian police. Every (short) explanation he gives becomes loud, elaborate and very heated in translation and the agitated discussions result in simple, short questions. This is of course a comedic jab at the Italians, but I can testify that it is exactly how it is working in Italy. Everything takes twice as long and requires at least 10 decibels extra to explain in Italian.

But I am digressing. The core story is about Monescu and Lily trying to rob the rich (and stunningly beautiful) widow Madame Colet (Kay Francis), owner of Colet and Company (perfumes), for a fortune. Using his extraordinary charm Monescu very quickly becomes Madame’s secretary and confidant with a love affair brewing on the horizon. Meanwhile Monescu and Lily, passing as Monescu’s (or La Valle as he calls himself) secretary, are arranging for 850.000 francs to be placed in her mansion, ready for the taking.

While Madame Colet is totally taken by Monescu there are a number of people who are less impressed. The aforementioned Francois Filiba and the Major are both courting Madame and fighting a hilarious battle to get her attention while discrediting each other. Both are way below her (and Monescu’s) standard which they eventually realize at which point they become allies against this greater threat. Filiba is almost remembering where he has seen Monescu before and his attempts at recollection are a highlight in itself. He will show up, stand there with a puzzled expression and then withdraw with an even more puzzled expression. And you know that the moment he remembers the scam will come crashing down around Monescu’s and Lily’s ears.

Also the chairman of the board of directors Monsieur Adolphe Giron is unhappy about the new secretary. For years he has been getting away with embezzling millions, but a crook recognizes another crook and Monescu catches him with the fingers in the cake box just as Giron uncovers Monescu’s real identity.

But the greatest threat to the scam is Monescu himself. Or rather Madame Colet, because the charm is mutual and they fall in love in each other to the chagrin of everybody else including his partner Lily. So besides being a scam story it also becomes a saucy love triangle drama.

I will not reveal here how it all works out, but the keyword is charm. Full throttle, overdrive charm.

A winning feature of this picture is that I love all the characters. Lily is so sassy, Colet is stunning, absolutely stunning and Filiba and the Major are priceless. My only problem is Herbert Marshall himself. He is so over the top sleek and suave that he gets sticky. With his sleek hair and immaculate suites and a demeanor of the most exquisite connoisseur I would run away screaming. Of course it was a different age and I am not a woman, but really? Isn’t he just a bit too much? He is totally charming however and he does win me over as well so I root for him, but he does make Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond look like an uncultured hobo.

If you are planning a romantic New year’s eve in the company of two you should NOT watch a movie. If you did however, you could do worse than picking “Trouble in Paradise”.

I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Jeg er en Flygtning

We stay in the department for social indignation with this next movie: “I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang”, the grandfather of all prison break films. I know, I could hardly have made a poorer selection of pictures for the holidays, but it is good to sober up a bit after gorging for days on end in the lap of the family (hmmm.. not sure if that expression works in English…).

If you ever wondered where all the prison break clichés come from, well this is it. Later film on the theme all refer to “I am a Fugitive…” to some extent and some even shamelessly like “Oh, Brother where art thou”. Since “I am a Fugitive…” was the first they are not clichés at all but a reminder of how much we are indebted to the old masters.

Again we are talking about a movie that takes up a social injustice, here the chain gang system, and exposes it for all the cruelty and dehumanization it entails. Warner did a whole series of social critiques in this period and this is the one I have seen that works the best. In fact this movie was instrumental in a reform of the prison system I am told, so it served its purpose. I would not have a clue if the chain gang camps were as bad as depicted here, but if they were I would say the US beat the Germans by a few years in establishing KZ camps.

I like this picture and that actually has nothing to do with the relevance or social indignation element, but because the story is fundamentally interesting and is told with the right pace and attention to detail. Paul Muni is an intense actor and when he stares you feel his eyes bore into you and sense the fight and sadness behind those eyes, yet when he smiles he is most charming but without losing that sadness. Considering the hell his character James Allen is going through, first wandering around searching for a job, being unjustly convicted to a 10 year sentence on a chain gang, brutalized, then escaping and getting back on top just to end up back in the chain gang, well that would do nasty things to a man. And Muni conveys all that bitterness and frustration.

This picture also holds and entire gallery of despicable characters.

Reverend Robert Allen (Hale Hamilton), James Allen’s brother is a pathetic self-righteous son of a bitch whom I feel an urge to punch in the face. Listening to this asshole drone on about that James belong in a boring factory job and better know his place or urging him to stay put while they work to get him out of prison makes my teeth grind. He has that lecturing movement of his hand and self-satisfied look that makes me want to kick him in the groin.

Marie Woods (Glenda Farrell), the land lady renting a room to James, but end up keeping him hostage. The bitch finds out he is a fugitive and blackmail him into marrying her so she can milk him for money and when he finally break with her she is the one turning him in. She is one cold, mean bitch.

The representatives of the Georgia penal system whether it be attorneys, judges or the staff of the prison camps, who see James Allens escape and critique as a person affront and will do their damnest to get back at him. Brutality has been seen both before and since in so many variations. What stands out here is the pettiness of it. They are brutal because they can and because it makes them feel powerful.

The sympathetic characters are almost exclusively the fellow inmates. This is actually a problem as it is hardly creditable that all these convicted criminals are actually good and jovial fellows if a bit on the tough side. If we are to believe the story the tough criminals ought to be a bit more… criminal.

In any case the South is as usual a place where you really do not want to go to prison or mess with law enforcement. Or to quote Eric Cartman: “Respect my authoritaya!”          

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Vredens Druer

You know those films that you fear seeing, with a story you are not sure you really want to hear, but know you should and are awfully glad when you have because it was an important story? “The Grapes of Wrath” is exactly that film. In a sea of movies meant to please, this is the necessary one that tells the story you need to hear, unpleasant as it is.

This is a story of the Depression. Maybe even The Story of the Depression. But that does not make it outdated at all, it is far too universal and particularly in this day and age we can find large chunks of the story happening all around us. It is awfully easy to close the eyes, but this is a movie to open them and hence the discomfort.

John Steinbeck’s legendary novel and John Ford’s equally famous picture from 1940 is about the Oklahoma farmers that got rooted up by the dust bowl and speculation and had to leave their homes for (rumors of) work in California. It is a tough story where we follow a particular family who loses everything that does not fit in their derelict truck and are reduced to be a scourge scorned by the surrounding society. It strains the cohesion of the family, which slowly falls apart. This is of course bad and the film is rightly praised for how well it depicts what such a crisis does to people on a personal level.

What I see in the film are the machinations of the crisis and the unfairness of it because this is also a politically agitating story. Not the over-the-top propaganda of Eisenstein, Bunuel or Riefenstahl, but the agitation you get when you reveal a social injustice so rampant that you just got to do something about it. Because very little if anything is exaggerated in this story, neither in the depiction of the fate of the migrant workers of the thirties nor in the analogy to migrant workers of today.

The Dust Bowl was a natural disaster (severe drought) exacerbated by poor land management (lack of shelterbelts and protection of topsoil) and combined with a financial crisis forcing the owners of the land and the banks to squeeze everything out of their assets including forcing tenants off the land. The tenants had no security at all and none was available for them and soon many of them were job and homeless. That sounds awfully familiar today in the present financial crisis but even more so when you consider third world farmers leaving their homes for the cities and wealthy western countries.

For the Joad family there is nothing to do but to hit the road and that fact causes the first casualty as grandpa Joad breaks down when they leave and never recovers. They are a sorry bunch, but they have heard that work is available in California. Plenty of work with generous pay, and so they are on their way. Again this sounds awfully familiar. I have been around the world and heard what is said about Europe and Scandinavia in particular. Many hopefuls out there buy into a fantasy that does not exist and end up being very disappointed.

The Joads cross the country and for a while the movie becomes a road movie, where we cross our fingers that they will make it to the land of milk and honey. In the eyes of the locals in the towns they pass through they are reduced to something akin to vermin and treated as such. Only occasionally they are treated with sympathy and respect even though they insist they are no beggars asking favors.

As they reach California this sentiment becomes rampant. The Joads are not the only Oklahoma farmers trying their luck in California and the invading horde is seen as exactly that. To be contained and neutralized and preferably evicted. There are camps (refugee camps) where the migrant families are setting up shanty towns and they are generally considered a burden and a scourge. Except by the ranchers and plantation owners who see the migrants as even cheaper labor than the already available workforce. A labor force that will work without question and can be abused at no costs. Which is exactly what is happening (again that familiar ring), both to the Joads and to all the other migrant workers.

Obviously the migrant workers are free game. They have absolutely no rights and no protection although they deserve all our sympathy and help. They want to be respected and live respectable life, but are treated as if undeserving of that. The authorities in the form of the police is not protecting the migrants against hostility and exploitation but instead enforce the blatant exploitation and become a tool for the brutality and xenophobia of the locals. Any defense of the migrants is considered communism and the work of “Red” (read un-American) agents. It is this unfairness which is at the core of Steinbeck’s and Ford’s story. These are fellow citizens. Just because they came on hard times they deserve to be treated with respect and given an even chance.

The movie gives its own (partial) solution in the form of the government camp where the migrants are treated as humans. This gives them a chance to regain their self-respect and treated well they behave well. With a flat command structure and a collective responsibility this is very much a social-democratic solution and part of the New Deal program that sought to alleviate the impact of the depression. Here it comes as a Godsend and saves the family in their deepest crisis.

This is a film of epic format, both because of the story, but also in production; just consider the sheer number of actors involved. The list of the cast just kept rolling, not to speak of all the extras. Henry Fonda as Tom Joad makes his character strong and wiry, but also a man of convictions who does what he got to do. Yet it is Jane Darwell as Ma Joad who steals the picture. She is very much the character that glue the group together, the epicenter around which the story progresses. And she does it with conviction and a realism that not for a second we doubt that she is the character. Only later as I started writing did I realize she got an Oscar as supporting actress. It is so very well deserved and the only surprise is that she did not get it for best actress. There is no other woman above her in this movie.

Migrant workers of the world, unite and take over!

Boudu Sauve des Eaux (1932)

Da Boudu blev reddet op af vandet

It is time for this year’s Christmas Special: “Boudu Sauve des Eaux” (Boudu Saved From Drowning).

A real Christmas movie is soft and sweet and usually have a morale like: “if you do well/behave/are generous, you will get greatly rewarded and Santa will give you nice presents”. “Boudu Sauve des Eaux” is the direct opposite. If anything it is an anti-Christmas film. Christmas is not even mentioned and it takes place during the summer and generosity is rewarded with insult and ridicule.

I did not look forward to see “Boudu Sauve des Eaux” again. I did not like it the first time and even though I am better attuned to it now I still do not like it. The problem is that there are nobody to root for in the movie. Everybody are deeply unsympathetic and this is not a “Bad Santa” movie where scumbags become good in the end. People are who they are and do no suddenly turn nice. You might say that this is a refreshing outlook and very different from Hollywood template, but dammit it makes it difficult to like this movie.

In a sense this is the opposite of a “My Fair Lady” story. The tramp Boudu (an always excellent Michel Simon) is saved from drowning by the bookseller Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval ), who then takes him in and decides to do the right thing and help Boudu get on his feet again. If this really was the story we would expect an ugly duckling story where Boudu becomes a real gentleman and shows his gratitude to his benefactor and we get some laughs as this oaf attempts to maneuver in the world of the bourgeois. Nothing could be further from this story. Boudu is an asshole of a tramp that does not care shit about anything or anyone except to follow his basic (low) instincts and do and say whatever he feels like with a total disregard to other people’s feelings. He did not wish to get saved, he do not care about his benefactors and he chafe under the restrictions of the bourgeois. In short, a mockery of the “My Fair Lady” plot.

But this story is not the one director Jean Renoir wishes to tell. Boudu is an agent, but not the focus of the story. Instead this is an exposé of the hypocrisy of the middle class bourgeois. A quick glance at the portfolio of Jean Renoir should make this obvious as it always figure as a theme in his pictures. Boudu is the agent that allows us to see all the double standards of the Lestingois household.

Edouard Lestingois wants to save and help the poor tramp, but he absolutely does not listen to him. He did not want to get saved, he does not want to be gentrified, but Edouard considers this the most natural thing in the world. Nice cloth, polished shoes and table manners and you are a gentleman. All the while Edouard has an affair with the maid Chloe (Sévérine Lerczinska) and treats his own wife Emma (Marcelle Hainia) with scorn.

Emma cannot see why on Earth Edouard wants to keep Boudu in the house and far into the story it seems that a primary reason is to annoy his wife. She is positively upset about this savage, until the point when Boudu throws his (fleeting) sexual attention on her, at which point she becomes his protector.

Chloe, the maid, seems for a while to be above the hypocrisy. She gently refuses Boudu’s advances on her and is (rightly) upset about the mess he creates. That Edouard is hitting on her I suppose is part of the reality of life for a maid. However when Boudu suddenly wins 100.000 Francs she totally falls in love with him and they quickly get married. His money are soooo charming.

We get a few other examples as well. In the park in the beginning of the movie Boudu losses his dog and everybody including the police ignores him and send him on his way. However when a respectable lady loses her expensive dog, everybody fall over themselves to help her. The double standards of society. The crowd watching Edouard drag Boudu out of the water praise Edouard for his heroism and give him a medal. For Boudu himself they could not care less.

In the end Boudu exploits the opportunity to escape the chafing bonds of the middle class when his boat capsizes on his wedding and he returns to the freedom and careless life of a tramp.

There is a certain amusement to the utter disrespect Boudu is showing for his benefactors as he trashes their lives and I did laugh a few times, but mainly I just felt disgust for everybody in the movie. Stepping back a moment from the story itself I was most impressed by Marcel Simon. That man was a genius actor. He deserves a lot of recognition. Nobody can play scum like him. Not even Billy Bob Thornton.  

 

The Bank Dick (1940)

 

Bankrøvernes Skræk

I have been watching a lot of W.C. Fields. When it became time to see “It’s a Gift” I bought this massive box set with an estimated 20 W.C. Fields films. “The Bank Dick” is the last DVD to watch, so this could well be a summary of the career of Mr. Fields.

When you see this many W.C. Fields movies you will notice that he is always the same character with the same acts, gags and lines. I know it is his signature, but when the story is lame you become aware that you have seen all this a few times before and it stops being funny.

“The Bank Dick” is one of his better pictures, though by no means a master piece, and unless you really love W.C. Fields the best way to see it is by making it your first W.C. Fields picture. Then you will not get that tired feeling of being on repeat.

If I forget that I have seen it before it is actually funny. He is (as usual) a lazy, loud and harmless bum of a man with (as usual) a bitching wife, a hateful mother in law and disrespectful children. He likes his drink (as usual), tells wildly exaggerated stories (yeah yeah…) and his work and action are more likely to turn disaster than anything good. You know, good ol’ W.C. Fields.

The storyline is strangely disjointed. We get some family infight, Mr. Sousé (Fields) get hired as a director of a movie because the previous director is even drunker than Fields, Sousé then trips a bank robber and is rewarded with a job as bank detective. Coincidentally the bank where Sousé’s son in law to be, Og (Grady Sutton) is working. Just as Sousé has talked Og into “borrowing” some money from the bank for a dubious investment (Beefsteak mines shares) the bank examiner J Pinkerton Snoopington (Franklin Pangborn) shows up. Sousé now gets busy delaying the examiner for a good four days until Og can get his bonus. He does that with considerable skill, but Mr. Snoopington is a zealous examiner and will not be distracted from his work. In this moment of crisis the shares turn out to be good anyway (juhuu…) and the bank gets robbed again (bummer). The bank examiner is forgotten and now it is all about a wild car chase.

This entire, well, story is just a vehicle for W.C. Fields to launch into his monologues, to be rolled over by family, friends or bank robbers or just get a drink or 10. It is occasionally funny. Actually quite a few of the scenes are funny, but just as often I am moaning that this man really needs some new gags. The best part is when he has to distract the bank examiner and takes the drugged fellow back to his hotel in a state that closely resembles a serious bender. Remind me never to have a drink with that man.

Had this been my first Fields movie I would probably have laughed uproarishly from his general demeanor and very jaded attitude to for example the bank robber or his skill at getting himself in trouble or a drink or both. As such this is not a bad film. I am just a bit fed up with W.C. Fields.

Queen Christina (1933)

Queen Christina

I have encountered three Greta Garbo films on the list. “Ninotchka” I already wrote about and “Camille” is yet to come. The subject of the entry “Queen Christina” is in my opinion the best of the three. In fact, having been through an entire box set of Garbo films this one is the best of the whole lot.

This is in no small part because the role as Queen Christina is as made for Garbo. She fit it like she was born to it, something I cannot say about her character in “Camille”. Queen Christina is haughty, powerful and dominating, but also passionate and longing and these traits are all inherent in Garbo. Even when the role does not require it she exudes these qualities. Not exactly the young courtesan, but definitely the queen. Add to that that she is actually Swedish and I could not imagine a better actress for the part.

She plays alongside John Gilbert and that is a curiosity in itself. Gilbert starred some early sound movies with sound quality so bad that he was libeled unsuited for talkies and so like a dinosaur of a past age was destined to go extinct. His heyday was with “The Big Parade” in 1925, but by 1933 he had become unwanted. Garbo had a thing going with Gilbert and so insisted that he get the part as Antonio. He proved that he was fully suited for talking pictures and does an excellent job here, but alas it was too late. He soon succumbed to alcohol and died in 36. It is not entirely unthinkable that the “The Artist” was modeled on John Gilbert. Jean Dujardin even looks like John Gilbert.

“Queen Christina” is a historic drama telling the story of legendary Queen Christina of Sweden, particularly the climax around her abdication in 1654. As is always the case with Hollywood interpretations of historic events the actual circumstances have been pimped up, but in this case not as much as I would have feared. I have checked a number of background details and they are surprisingly correct. An example is that Christina rides for the border at the end of the movie. My first thought was, aha, there is no border between Stockholm and Helsingborg, but in fact there was. The peace agreement at Brømsebro in 1645 only gave Halland to Sweden, whereas Skåne where Helsingborg is located was only ceded in 1658 in the Roskilde treaty. Christina did indeed leave Sweden by the way of a ship in Helsingborg and it was no trivial affair for Swedish royalty to cross through hostile Denmark to get to the ship. It would have been easy to gloss over this, but the movie does not and I applaud it for it.

I have not been able to verify if a meeting really happened at an inn with the Spanish envoy shortly after his arrival, but he is a historic character and she was indeed infatuated by him and created an order of knighthood around him. One of the rules of the knighthood was to never get married. Christina herself was indeed known for going around in men’s attire and a supporter of the arts. She eventually ended up in Rome as a patron of the arts and is one of the few women to have been buried in the Vatican crypt. Her weaknesses however are glossed over. She was wasteful with resources as beside waging expensive wars she doubled the nobility class in Sweden granting land and resources from the royal coffers far beyond their capacity. Also she took little interest in the actual ruling of the country leaving Axel Oxenstierna de facto ruler of Sweden. In Garbo’s version she is entirely the responsible leader, not afraid to take action, and very concerned with the costs of waging war.

Well, I suppose I cannot blame director Rouben Mamoulian for embellishing the story. For a movie from the 30’ies these modifications are quite modest.

Apart from the historical element “Queen Christina” has number of interesting features. I love the mistaken identity scene at the inn. The two peasants coming up to the queen asking her to settle a wager: Did the queen have 6 or 9 lovers in the past year? To which she declares that it was 12! How rare to have a female lead brag of being quite a, well, stud. The play between Gilbert and Garbo is also delicious both before and after he realizes she is actually a woman. And his expression is priceless when he realizes he has been bedding the queen herself.

Although the supporting cast appear rather wooden and theatrical they are still believable, maybe because the scenery with them in the castle look like so many old paintings. There is a certain tableau quality to the scenography.

Finally it is refreshing with a female protagonist, especially one as strong as Garbo, not a dainty flower to be tossed around but a force to be reckoned with. Too bad that love is made to be her undoing. Such a character deserves better than a cliché fate. Well, queen or not, to Hollywood she was first and foremost a woman.