Greta Garbo
Sep. 7th, 2005 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieI am back on the classic kick...
Am going to rewatch all the Garbo movies I have.
My Top 10 list:
1. Camille: Garbo plays a doomed 19th century Courtesan who falls in love with a naive young man played by the gorgeous Robert Taylor. Moulin Rouge stole the plot. Tragic, romantic, period, rather on the dysfunctional angsty romance side, plus, damn, but Robert Taylor was HOT.
2. Ninotchka: advertised as "Garbo Laughs," this is a hilarious and sophisticated and romantic comedy about a Russian Commissar who comes to Paris to sell some revolutionary jewels and falls for the Parisian lifestyle and a Parisian aristocrat (played charmingly by Melvyn Douglas).
3. The Flesh and the Devil: the uber-famous silent where Garbo plays a temptress locked in a complex and sinful and uber-hot affair with real-life lover John Gilbert. Their chemistry is scorching and the movie is beautiful.
4. Grand Hotel: Garbo is a suicidal ballerina in this all-star but depressing tale of lost souls in a Berlin hotel. This flick won best picture.
5. As You Desire Me: This one isn't as well known as the above four, but I like it a lot. A man who lost his gentle aristocratic wife in the chaos of WWI comes across a drunken kept woman he believes is she. Whether it's so or not, she is slowly won over by his gentleness. Then...
6. Love: Silent version of Anna Karenina. Happy ending :) Who cares. Gilbert and Garbo burn up the creen (the movie was renamed just so the ads could run "Garbo and Gilbert in love."
7. Queen Christina: Garbo is the titutlar queen with a strong will and a doomed romance (with John Gilbert). It's quite an iconic movie, especially the scene where she "memorizes" the room they've just made love in.
8. Mata Hari: pure cheese but the angst is totally fun. Plus, I have a weakness the size of China for Ramon Novarro who plays a Russian with a thick Spanish accent!
9. Conquest: Garbo and Charles Boyer in this interesting look at a Polish countess who was involved with Napoleon.
10. Inspiration: yet again, Garbo is a doomed woman in love with someone she shouldn't be. Fun melodrama.
Am going to rewatch all the Garbo movies I have.
My Top 10 list:
1. Camille: Garbo plays a doomed 19th century Courtesan who falls in love with a naive young man played by the gorgeous Robert Taylor. Moulin Rouge stole the plot. Tragic, romantic, period, rather on the dysfunctional angsty romance side, plus, damn, but Robert Taylor was HOT.
2. Ninotchka: advertised as "Garbo Laughs," this is a hilarious and sophisticated and romantic comedy about a Russian Commissar who comes to Paris to sell some revolutionary jewels and falls for the Parisian lifestyle and a Parisian aristocrat (played charmingly by Melvyn Douglas).
3. The Flesh and the Devil: the uber-famous silent where Garbo plays a temptress locked in a complex and sinful and uber-hot affair with real-life lover John Gilbert. Their chemistry is scorching and the movie is beautiful.
4. Grand Hotel: Garbo is a suicidal ballerina in this all-star but depressing tale of lost souls in a Berlin hotel. This flick won best picture.
5. As You Desire Me: This one isn't as well known as the above four, but I like it a lot. A man who lost his gentle aristocratic wife in the chaos of WWI comes across a drunken kept woman he believes is she. Whether it's so or not, she is slowly won over by his gentleness. Then...
6. Love: Silent version of Anna Karenina. Happy ending :) Who cares. Gilbert and Garbo burn up the creen (the movie was renamed just so the ads could run "Garbo and Gilbert in love."
7. Queen Christina: Garbo is the titutlar queen with a strong will and a doomed romance (with John Gilbert). It's quite an iconic movie, especially the scene where she "memorizes" the room they've just made love in.
8. Mata Hari: pure cheese but the angst is totally fun. Plus, I have a weakness the size of China for Ramon Novarro who plays a Russian with a thick Spanish accent!
9. Conquest: Garbo and Charles Boyer in this interesting look at a Polish countess who was involved with Napoleon.
10. Inspiration: yet again, Garbo is a doomed woman in love with someone she shouldn't be. Fun melodrama.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 02:31 pm (UTC)Re: Grand Hotel. I actually read the novel the movie was based on, and was startled to discover that it was one of the most faithful adaptations out there. Unusual. It's quite sad because I always root for the characters in it, and of course any happiness they have is momentary. Garbo finds love at last only to have it snatched away and she doesn't even know it (it always kills me that she doesn't find out and I always wonder about her meltdown when she does). The Baron also finds love but gets shot. Lionel Barrymore's character is dying, and...basically the whole thing makes you want to slit your wrists. But it's so good.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:36 am (UTC)I didn't know Grand Hotel was based on a novel - I must look for it at some point. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:19 pm (UTC)yes, Grand Hotel is actually a pretty decent book (though as I said, if you've seen the movie, that's it in a nutshell) except for painting Wallace Beery's character a tad more sympathetically and an interesting scene where the Ballerina calls Baron's apartment after he's been shot but she doesn't know it.
garbo films
Date: 2005-11-09 07:32 pm (UTC)audrey:)