Anna Christie (1930)

Directed by Clarence Brown

Starring Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford and George F. Marion

Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM)

Chris, an old barge captain brings his female… companion Marthy down to the local bar. We know immediately he’s a regular and does not need much excuse to drink, but tonight he’s in a celebratory mood. His estranged daughter Anna is coming from Minnesota to visit him.

The sailor steps out for a few minutes and in walks Anna to share a drink with Marthy. Chris eventually returns and we learn that Anna spent the last 15 years in a forced servitude with extended family, escaped to St. Paul as a nursing aide, fell ill and was recently released from the hospital. Her dad offers to let Anna stay on his boat and she reluctantly accepts.

Chris dreams of getting a place for his daughter inland and living out his years away from “that old devil sea.” Anna however seems to have rediscovered herself on the water. She loves living on the boat.

One foggy night, the barge encounters three men floating on a listless piece of debris in the open ocean. Anna and her father rescue the men and she begins to fall for Matt, one of the burly ship-wrecked sailors.

Anna ultimately finds herself in a tug of war between her father’s desire to make up for lost time and Matt’s gruff love for her. Will she choose either of the men? And what terrible secret from her past will be revealed before it’s all over?

Anna Christie holds a special place in film history. It’s Greta Garbo’s first speaking role in a movie. The German-born actress was a late-comer to talkies as she had to learn English first. The marketing for the film was a simple yet elegant two-word sentence: “Garbo speaks.”

Important is one thing. Good is something completely different. And this is not a good film.

The film centers around a coal barge, which seems an apt analogy for the entirety of the film. It’s slow and plodding. It literally feels like it’s being dragged along. It’s ugly and messy to watch and listen to. And no one says “barge” and thinks excitement. This is dull, dull, dull.

Garbo is pretty much terrible. Her every line reading seems muffled and garbled. There were moments where Anna’s demeanor reminded me not of a sultry temptress, but of a character Kristen Wiig might play on Saturday Night Live.

George Marion’s Chris manages to make Garbo look like Meryl Streep. His character is annoying. His every mannerism is frustratingly juvenile and his voice is the cinematic equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. I came close to shutting the film off just to escape him.

The only saving grace in the film is the performance of Marie Dressler as Marthy, Chris’ friend and prostitute. Marthy is constantly drunk and can turn from playful to belligerent on a dime. Her screentime is limited which probably adds to her charm. I imagine two hours of her would be as grating as Marion, but here it is just enough.

The film is staid and stagnant as shot by Clarence Brown. Even in storm and fog sequences, there’s no tension, no sense that anything is happening at all. It’s conventional in almost every aspect. The only time Brown seems to have fun at all with his camera is during Anna and Matt’s date at the carnival. Brown mounts a camera on a roller coaster and looks down the tower of a strongman game as Matt swings the hammer to ring the bell.

By the time Anna Christie sputters to its climax, Garbo is forced to reveal a secret to the two men in her life and I could have cared less. I didn’t like any of these people to begin with. They are all pretty vile in their own ways. Am I really supposed to find any pathos, treagedy or redemption in the closing moments?

Ultimately, we get what was advertised here. Garbo does indeed speak. I only wish she had something to say.

*1/2 out of *****

Photo from All Movie

Murder! (1930)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring and Phyllis Konstam

At a boarding house for actors across from a theater, a body is found. The only suspect in the crime is Diana Baring, sitting in the same room with the body, claiming to have no memory of the deed.

The case quickly goes to trial and the jurors decide she’s either guilty or schizophrenic and a danger to others. In either case, she should be condemned.

However, one of the jurors has second thoughts. Sir John is a famous actor who begins to believe in the accused’s innocence and sets off to investigate with the help of a stage manager and his wife.

Sir John visits the scene of the crime and Diana's bedroom. He even visits her in prison. Will the trail lead to the killer? And what will the killer do once caught?

It should be no secret around here that 100 Years loves his Hitchcock. Many of the suspense master’s films are the reason I became interested in classic films in the first place.

So it’s with no small amount of disappointment that I report that Murder! is not a very good film.

At its core, we have a lot of the staples of a Hitchcock film. It’s a procedural with an unconventional character doing the detecting. It’s obsessed with identity and appearances. A lot of the fun technical Hitchcock touches are here as well. When his camera zooms or pans, it’s for a purpose. When he focuses in tight on the killer’s face at the end, it’s absolutely essential.

What the film lacks though is suspense and a compelling lead character.

In any whodunit like this, you want to build the tension and narrow the field of suspects. Well, Sir John never really investigates many suspects. He just meanders around town from scene to scene, assembling little clues. Nobody is overly concerned about his investigation or trying to stop him. It’s ponderous.

And Sir John himself turns out to be a bit of bore. His shtick is to use his theater training to suss out the mystery. So, for example, when the boarding house landlady swears the high pitched voice she heard had to be a woman, Sir John contrives to be in a separate room and talks in a female voice, fooling the landlady and demonstrating perhaps she was wrong.

It would be an interesting way of telling this tale if it were not so ham-handed. Sir John literally walks out of the room in full view of the landlady and a second later a voice that sounds like any guy impersonating a woman comes from the other room. It’s not proof that the voices arguing in the apartment; it’s proof that the landlady is a moron and that Sir John would be terrible in Tootsie.

The film is not suspenseful, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have moments of suspense. The climax of the film where the killer is wrestling with his guilt and the aftermath of that moment is nail-biting. We’re watching with bated breath to see not whether he’s the killer (we know he is), but what he’s going to do as the trap closes on him.

Still, after a promising opening, it’s a slog of cliché and exposition to get to the end. Murder! is necessary viewing for the Hitchcock completist, but that’s about as far as I’d go.

** out of *****