Grand Hotel (1932)

Directed by Edmund Goulding
Starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore and Joan Crawford
Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Ensemble films are notoriously difficult affairs. Multiple characters in overlapping storylines can leave audiences unsatisfied.  The director has to be a tightrope walker: balancing plot elements and making sure everyone gets their screen time only to find in the end that viewers liked that character but hated that story.

If it's a small miracle that these types of movies succeed, then Grand Hotel turns water into wine.  The film follows a destitute Baron (John Barrymore) who is both a jewel thief and in love with the famous dancer Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo).  The Baron befriends Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), a lifetime employee of General Director Preysing's (Wallace Beery).  Kringelein is dying and looking to use his remaining money to live life to the fullest.  For his part, Preysing is teetering on the edge of financial ruin and hires the beautiful stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford) to help him with his affairs.  Preysing likes the woman, but Flaemmchen is smitten with the Baron.

Did you get all of that?

The connective tissue between the players and stories is the location: The Grand Hotel in Berlin.  The hotel is effectively another character in the film.  We can feel the pulse of the movie in its lobby.  Rooms seem to morph from places of romance to ones of foreboding.  And we can never leave the hotel.  When characters head out its front doors, we cannot follow.  The tone constantly shifts and director Edmund Goulding takes full advantage of his locale.

If there is a surprise here, it is just how subversive Grand Hotel is in its themes. For a big Hollywood spectacle packed with stars, the movie is dark almost to the point of being nihilistic.  Of our main characters, one leaves the hotel in a body bag, another in handcuffs, and a third for a train station to meet a lover we all know is not showing up, a fact the hotel itself seems to conspire to conceal.

One of the few hopeful notes seems to be struck by Kringelein, who leaves the hotel with Flaemmchen for Paris to find a doctor who can heal him. But Kringelein's hopes strike me as false.  They are no more than a way to placate Flaemmchen's desperation. The Paris trip is more a way to pass the time with a girl who is his only true remaining friend.  It's a way to give her purpose for a little while.

The only other true hopeful moment comes from a minor character, a porter. As the film ends, he receives a call from the hospital.  His wife is having a baby.  Perhaps we can look forward to the future.

Or perhaps not.  Dr. Otternschlag, a permanent resident of the Grand Hotel, seems to act as the voice of the place. And he closes the film repeating a line he said at the beginning:

"Grand Hotel. People come and go. Nothing ever happens."

Indeed. Robberies and murder. Love and hatred. Death and birth.  All are consequential to the players. But the hotel just goes on.  Whether you leave the hotel for a train station or the morgue, there is always another guest waiting to check in.

Grand Hotel is about as perfect as an ensemble film gets.  It balances all of its elements and has something to say.  It's a masterpiece of the pre-Code era.

***** out of *****

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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

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Flesh and the Devil (1926)

A bugle sounds announcing the start of a new day on a military base in Germany.  Men pour out of the bunks and begin to change into their uniforms.  One of the men, Ulrich, is a little slower at leaving his bunk.  He delivers a kick to the bed above him to wake its occupant and finds it... empty.  His friend Leo has spent the night out on the town again.

Ulrich quickly arranges Leo's bed to make it look like someone is in it.  When Leo is missed at roll call, Ulrich announces that he is ill.  The commander goes to investigate, pulls the covers and...

Leo is sleeping in the bed.  The commander leaves and the friends celebrate pulling one over on the officer, until the officer returns and finds the sick Leo dancing.  They are both sent off to shovel dung out of the stables.

A few months later, the two friends head for home.  At the train station, they are met by Leo's mother and Ulrich's sister Hertha, who clearly has her eye on Leo.  However, Leo's eyes are drawn to another, a beautiful woman exiting the train.

He asks his mother who the woman is.  She does not know but speculates the woman is in town for the ball.  We know where Leo is headed next.

At the ball, Leo rebuffs the advances of Hertha and looks for the mysterious woman.  He finds her across the floor and sweeps her onto the dance floor.  The pair soon are walking from the hall into a secluded part of the garden.  There is a cigarette.  They kiss...

Cut to them waking up in the woman's bedroom.  All is right with the world.  Until her husband arrives.  He challenges Leo to a duel the next morning, a duel which Leo wins.

However, because he has killed a man, he must spend five years at a military outpost in Africa.  Before he goes, he asks his friend Ulrich to look after the young widow.

Ulrich gets Leo out of the service a couple of years early and the exile returns to find his friend has married the love of his life.  Ulrich believed the duel was over cheating at a card game and not the stunning young woman.  He had no idea Leo had designs on her.

Will the three overcome these new obstacles or will their passion erupt in violence once more?

We've all seen movies with a love triangle, right?  Except when you think about it, rarely is it a love triangle.  More like two lines that meet at one point.  When there are two guys and a girl, it's not usually a question of whether the two guys will end up together.

Flesh and the Devil is a true love triangle.

Leo loves the woman.  Ulrich loves the woman.  And Leo and Ulrich love each other.

Yes, you read that right.

Sure it's not overtly romantic.  Except for the way the embrace.  And look into each others' eyes.  And speak to each other.  They even get married (sort of).  In 1926, there is only so far the movie could go with these themes, but it's hardly subtext.  More like supertext.

The film excels at showing us instead of telling us about these relationships.  We see Leo and Ulrich's friendship.  We see Leo fall hard for Greta Garbo's Felicitas.  And we feel every bit of the betrayal Leo feels when he returns to find Ulrich and Felicitas married.  You believe these relationships.  Leo and Ulrich feel like they have known each other forever.  Which makes the knife twist all the more painful.

The direction by Clarence Brown made me sit up and take notice.  Despite having seen two of his previous features, it was like I was seeing him for the first time.  The camera is always right where it needs to be and every zoom and movement has a purpose.  Really virtuoso stuff here.

There are a lot of great uses of light and shadow.  The ethereal light that bathes Garbo in a glowas Gilbert goes to light her cigarette.  The shadow of Garbo's husband stalking the young lovers before he enters the room.  The ominous silhouettes of the duel.   Gorgeous.

The symbolism is heavily slathered onto this movie, but that suits the melodrama perfectly.  We see the statue of the two "friends" in the beginning.  After their relationship fractures, we see it again, this time overgrown with vines with a literal branch growing between the figures.  The lake that surrounds the Isle of Friendship freezes over as their relationship turns chilly.  

The acting here is all around perfect.  Gilbert's Leo has a mischievous streak, but also a loyalty to those he loves.  His eyes allow you to see his love and lust, his seething rage when Felicitas is taken from him and his sad sense of defeat when he sees no escape from his feelings but death.

Lars Hanson's has a Ralph Fiennes look as Ulrich.  He does not even realize he has betrayed his friend and Leo's distance literally wears him down.

Garbo is less a person here and more a device to bring the friends into conflict, but she fills her character's empty vessel with just the right sense of mystery and sensuality.  She's Helen of Troy and with one look she can send men off to die for her.

I have a few years yet to go, but I will be shocked if Flesh and the Devil is not near the top of my Best of the 1920s list.  It's brilliantly filmed, superbly acted with a story that's both simple and timeless.  A must see.

***** out of *****

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The Temptress (1926)

"You should see the other guy..."

Directed by Fred Niblo
Starring Greta Garbo, Antonio Moreno and Marc McDermott
Produced by Cosmopolitan Productions

During an exotic masquerade ball, the beautiful Elena runs from the dance floor to escape her would-be suitor Fontenoy.  Her flight takes her right into the arms of Manuel Robledo and as often happens in Hollywood the two fall in love.  She refuses to share her name, but Robeldo soon discovers she is the wife of his friend, the Marquis de Torre Bianca. 

Yes, Elena is a married woman, but her husband enjoys living beyond their family's means. So, he rents out his wife to the wealthy Fontenoy. Sadly, Fontenoy is a bit over-indulgent and bankrupts himself by showering gifts upon Elena.

To forget his love, Robeldo heads to the Argentine to work as lead engineer on a dam project. The escape doesn't go to plan as the Marquis and Elena soon join him.  And as if Robeldo's trouble with love wasn't enough, a local gang leader wants to take out Robeldo and his dam.

Will Robeldo escape the evil Manos Duras and find love?  Will anyone with an XY chromosome not immediately start acting like an idiot after meeting Elena?

The Temptress is a romantic drama, but it's one of those romantic dramas.  You know, a film where every guy falls all over themselves to please the woman.  And Greta Garbo's Elena is the woman.

We've seen this act before, most notably with Theda Bara in A Fool There Was.  Unlike Bara's vamp character though, Garbo just seems to be a beautiful woman whose men suffer from bad luck once they are under her power.

That's not to say she's not culpable.  She indulges the men and clearly loves the attention.  When she moves to the Argentine, she dons an elegant dress for their frontier dinner and gets called out for it.  But she's not changing her dress or her ways.  When the fish are biting, why mess with the bait?

As for the bad luck of her men, Elena qualifies as her own natural disaster.  Through her involvement, Fontenoy is bankrupted and commits suicide, her husband is shot and killed, one of Robeldo's friends is killed by another of his friends and the dam gets blown to smithereens.  There are hurricanes without that kind of resume.

It's also one of those films in its dialogue.  A sampling:

"I must have you alone - I have so much to say to you. I've waited so long - just for you - "


"All my life, I've been wishing to meet such a woman as you - on such a night as this!"

"Let us keep for an hour the glamour of romance.  I tell you this - I belong to no one else."

"Remember this of me- there were tears in my eyes when I said - - 'I love you!'"

All of these are from the first ten minutes of a 105 minute movie.  If you are like me, you'll need a doctor's visit to remove your finger from your throat.  And those hyphens are important.  They are the dramatic, One Life to Live pauses that are present in every line of dialogue.  Every -- line.

I have not said much about Garbo and frankly that's because there is not much to say.  Elena doesn't do much.  What we know about her comes more from everyone's reaction to her and not from anything she does.  Elena is a blank slate of eyes looking meaningfully at some off-camera horizon as men swoon.  That said, Garbo does inhabit the character in a way that you get the attraction.  The camera loves her and so does the audience.

I wish there was another character I liked.  Robledo is close to a hero, but he's a little too wimpy for most of the film.  Then at the end, as he is motivating his crew to try to save the dam, he threatens to shoot the first man to desert.  Then, he randomly shoots someone.  Your hero, ladies and gentlemen!

Niblo shoots the film well enough.  There are some truly beautiful shots throughout.  His images of Paris and the masquerade party are warm and beautiful.  His gauzy lens makes Garbo glow and there is nothing wrong with that.

There was one sequence that surprised me with its violence.  Robledo challenges Duras to a fight and after debating swords versus pistols, they settle on an Argentine fight.  The crowd drew a circle in the sand, handed the two men whips and let them go at it.  First one to leave the circle loses.  When Robledo finally wins, both men are a bloody mess.  The moment underlined just how dangerous this world was and heightened the stakes for the rest of the film.

The Temptress is predictable and features annoying dialogue.  Still, it's not without its charms, principally Garbo and the way the men who surround her are dispatched.  All of that gets us to:

** out of *****

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The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924)

Directed by Mauritz Stiller
Starring Lars Hanson, Gerda Lundequist and Greta Garbo
Produced by Svensk Filmindustri

Gösta Berling, a priest in a small town, is hitting the bottle.  Hard.  A bishop hears of his antics and is dispatched to investigate.  Gösta delivers an impassioned and fiery sermon to the congregation, but follows it up with an outburst against the believers.  He is defrocked and cast out.

Alone, Gösta wanders the land until he is taken in by a countess at an estate called Borg.  The former priest begins tutoring the countess' step-daughter Ebba and the two begin to fall in love... which of course was all part of the countess' plan.  If Ebba marries a commoner, she forfeits her inheritance and the Borg estate will go to the countess' son Henrik and his new wife Elisabeth.

The countess' plot comes to light at a banquet hosted at a neighboring estate known as Ekeby.  The owners of Ekeby, a major and his wife, throw lavish affairs where their "knights" serve as entertainment.  The knights are in fact more like court jesters and entertainers.  Ebba is shocked by her step-mother's plan and a heartbroken Gösta leaves Borg to join the knights at Ekeby.

Can Gösta find love?  And what other secrets will be revealed over the course of this tale?

The Saga of Gösta Berling, like many silent dramas, is a melodrama.  The danger in melodrama is it either works or it doesn't, there is never a middle ground.  Either the actors and story draw you in enough to buy the flourishes, or it's all too over the top and calculated to ever be satisfying.

Gösta Berling works.  Better than that, it shines.

The Saga of Gösta Berling is first and foremost a tale of flawed and fallen humans, all seeking redemption.  And their penance can only come through connecting with another soul.  If Gösta can find love, he will no longer be the defrocked man of God.  Elisabeth is married, but isolated as she comes to realize her husband is someone she doesn't recognize.  For some it is too late: the major's wife gave up her love for a poor man to marry into wealth and her existence is a private hell she hides from in banquets and plays.

There is a lot to love here, but I have to start with the virtuoso directing of Mauritz Stiller.  He uses the frozen landscape of Sweden as the backdrop and it fits his story perfectly.    The film's camerawork complements its themes and does so in a series of beautiful moments.

Stiller also nails the pacing.  The film has a cadence that just pulled me through the trials and tribulations of these characters.  Just when things are slowing down, we see the next secret revealed and were right back in the middle of the action.  And when all of the character twists and turns threaten to overwhelm, we get a couple of action set pieces in the final third.

The movie opens with a scene from the middle of the tale.  The knights are enjoying their usual merriment in their barracks when Gösta calls for the 13th knight to appear.  Suddenly, a creature emerges from the fireplace and explains he can't stay long; he's here to pick up the soul of a knight.  The men look around nervously, before Gösta reveals it's a prank by removing the co-conspirator's mask.

The scene is the perfect set up for the rest of the movie.  Beyond showing us that the knights are a jovial lot, the scene sets the stakes immediately: Gösta's soul is at stake.  He's broken and needs to be reassembled or  he will find himself in hell. It's a theme repeated again and again throughout the movie.

The actors here are all good, but not great.  Lars Hanson plays Berling with a Sweeney Todd haircut and wide eyes.  All of the actors engage in some grand gestures and over-the-top moments, but there's a lot of subtlety to the players' work here as well.  Greta Garbo was discovered by Hollywood thanks to this film and its easy to see why.  She's tremendous.

That's not to say the whole movie works.  At one point, Ekeby is burnt to the ground.  There's a lot of tension as the fire is set and the knights begin trying to escape.  Then it keeps going on.  And on.  Gösta escapes by a different route then everyone else, but the movie never provides a great sense of location.  I have no idea where he is in the house or what he is doing.

The film also reaches a moment of character overload.  The Sinclairs are shown as minor characters who run in the same social circles as the residents of Borg and Ekeby.  Halfway through the film, they take on a larger role, then shrink right back into the background very quickly.  They all have very superficial motivation, made all the more obvious by the detailed back stories and arcs the rest of the main cast get.

In the scope of a three hour epic, these are minor quibbles.  One of the joys of exploring each year of film in a haphazard and random way is you make discoveries.  The Saga of Gösta Berling was not on my radar before.  Now, I'll never forget it.

**** out of *****

Memorable line:  "You won't escape by turning yourself into a beautiful corpse.  Don't you know that most people are dead already?"

NOTE: The film is based on the novel of the same name by Selma Langerlöf.  The book was loved in Sweden (it's considered the Swedish Gone with the Wind) and critical reception of the movie there at the time was not great.  People thought the book was better.  I guess some things never change.

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