Greta Garbo Box Set Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Garbo talks - and so does everyone else

All the other major Hollywood stars (Chaplin excepted, of course) had chanced their voices with the talkies by this time, with a few (most notably John Gilbert) taking a bath when they didn't sound quite like they looked. MGM were worried the same would happen to Garbo, with her extraordinary husky bass and Swedish accent. Which makes you wonder why they should have chosen a very talkie play by Eugene O'Neill for her sound debut.

Still, from the moment she enters, and then remains silent for almost a further minute, she is in complete control. 'Gif me a whiskey. Ginger ale on the side,' she says, and from then on we know she isn't the ideal daughter he slightly batty father (George Marion) imagines. He sent her away to relatives in Minnesota to be far from 'dat old devil sea', but it hasn't done her much good, as dad and the sailor who falls for her (Charles Bickford) discover.

We don't care, because it's Garbo, and she's magical, even when the film bogs down. Director Clarence Brown tries hard to create the right waterfront atmosphere, and the players work very hard (particularly Marie Dressler as Marion's permanently drunken girlfriend), but O'Neill is a slog if you take him too seriously - which this film undoubtedly does.

The adventurous (or just big fans of the star) should search out the French version of the film, shot simultaneously by Jacques Feyder: Garbo is even finer in that.

GARBO SHINES FOR THE AGES

Garbo defines the term ' star quality ' in what is generally regarded as her finest hour - as the tragic Marguerite she radiates wit and melancholy,experience and innocence,wisdom and naivete.William Daniels never photographed her more beautifully and George Cukors direction is sympathetic and sensitive to her every mood.