TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 5 -- Summer Under The Stars: Greta Garbo

[Staph]

I love Summer Under The Stars -- TCM devotes the full day to one great star, and today's star is one of my favorites, Greta Garbo. Enjoy!


4:00am -- 84 Charing Cross Road (1986)
A shut-in's correspondence with a London book dealer leads to a close friendship.
Cast: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench.
Dir: David Hugh Jones.
C-99 mins, TV-PG

Although claimed to be a true story, at least one source implies that there was a bit of artistic license. Leo Marks, later a screenwriter, was the son of the bookstore's owner, and the head of codes and communication for Britain's special operatives and the underground during WWII, despite being barely old enough for college. In his book "Between Silk and Cyanide" he says of his father: "He never read the gentle little myth by Helene Hanff; Long before it was published he'd become one himself."


5:41am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Gypsy Night (1935)
Gypsies sing and dance around the fire while their children dream.
Cast: Mary Jo Mathews, Joseph Mario, Ilia Khmara.
Dir: Josef Berne, Harold Hecht.
C-18 mins

The soundtrack includes "Dark Eyes", an English language version of Russian folk song "Otchi Tchorniya"


6:00am -- The Temptress (1926)
In this silent film, a woman forsakes husband and lover to pursue a young engineer.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Antonio Moreno, Lionel Barrymore.
Dir: Fred Niblo.
BW-106 mins, TV-PG

Director Mauritz Stiller was fired after 10 days of production and replaced with Fred Niblo.


8:00am -- Flesh And The Devil (1926)
In this silent film, a femme fatale comes between childhood friends.
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson.
Dir: Clarence Brown.
BW-113 mins, TV-PG

The famous, tempestuous love affair between Greta Garbo and John Gilbert began while they were filming this movie.


10:00am -- The Mysterious Lady (1928)
In this silent film, an Austrian officer unwittingly falls in love with a Russian spy.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel, Gustav von Seyffertitz.
Dir: Fred Niblo.
BW-90 mins, TV-PG

Co-star Conrad Nagel was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and served as its president from 1932 to 1933.


11:31am -- Short Film: From The Vaults: The Divine Woman (Lost Garbo Footage) (1928)
BW-9 mins

One of AFI's Lost Films, this film was originally 80 minutes in length, though only these nine minutes still exist.


11:45am -- A Woman Of Affairs (1928)
Prejudice keeps a free spirit from the man she loves, triggering a series of tragedies.
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Dir: Clarence Brown.
BW-91 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Achievement -- Bess Meredyth (No official nominees had been announced this year.)


1:25pm -- Short Film: From The Vaults: Garbo Festival (2000)
BW-3 mins

In her life, Garbo was nominated for three Oscars, for Best Actress in Romance (1930), Anna Christie (1930), Camille (1936), and Ninotchka (1939). She was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1955 "for her unforgettable screen performances".


1:30pm -- Mata Hari (1931)
Romantic biography of World War I's notorious lady spy.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Lionel Barrymore.
Dir: George Fitzmaurice.
BW-89 mins, TV-PG

Mata hari translates to "eye of the day" in Indonesian (and Malay), and is the most common word for "sun" in those languages.


3:00pm -- Queen Christina (1933)
Romantic tale of the 17th-century Swedish queen and her romance with a Spanish diplomat.
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lewis Stone.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian.
BW-99 mins, TV-G

For the famous closing shot of Greta Garbo at the prow of the ship, director Rouben Mamoulian had wanted the camera to begin with a long shot, and then, in one unbroken take, gradually dolly in on a two-thirds close-up of Garbo's face, holding on her at the end of the shot. Unfortunately, with the camera's 48mm lens that close to the human face, pores tend to resemble craters on the surface of the moon. Borrowing on aspects of the magic lantern, Mamoulian devised a large, ruler-shaped, glass filter strip that was clear at one end, becoming increasingly more diffused along its length. With this glass filter mounted in front of the lens, as the camera moved in on Garbo, the glass strip was gradually drawn through the filter holder, beginning with the clear end, and ending with the diffused end (close-up), softening Garbo's facial features with more flattering results.


4:45pm -- Anna Karenina (1935)
Adaptation of Tolstoy's classic tale of a woman who deserts her family for an illicit love.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone.
Dir: Clarence Brown.
BW-93 mins, TV-14

Aware that her co-star Fredric March was notorious for seducing his leading ladies, Greta Garbo reportedly wore garlic under her clothes and purposely had bad breath in order to stave off his advances.


6:19pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Inflation (1933)
An attempt to explain the economic cycle of inflation and unemployment.
Narrator: Pete Smith.
Dir: Zion Myers.
BW-11 mins

As is highly appropriate for a film made in the early years of FDR's administration, the soundtrack includes Happy Days Are Here Again!


6:30pm -- Garbo (2005)
Documentary that explores the life and career of screen legend Greta Garbo.
Narrator: Julie Christie.
Dir: Christopher Bird, Kevin Brownlow.
BW-86 mins, TV-PG

Throughout Garbo's entire MGM career, she insisted that William Daniels be cinematographer on her pictures. This may not have been purely superstition, as the two notable films she made without him: Conquest (1937) and Two Faced Woman (1941) were her only notable flops.


What's On Tonight: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: GRETA GARBO


8:00pm -- Camille (1936)
In this classic 19th-century romance, a kept woman runs off with a young admirer in search of love and happiness.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore.
Dir: George Cukor.
BW-109 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo's personal favourite movie of all her own films. She wore bedroom slippers under all her fancy dresses so she could be comfortable, as well as more naturalistic in her acting.


10:00pm -- Ninotchka (1939)
A coldhearted Soviet agent is warmed up by a trip to Paris and a night of love.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch.
BW-111 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, Best Writing, Original Story -- Melchior Lengyel, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture

The tagline "Garbo laughs!" came before the screenplay was written; the film was built around that single, now legendary, slogan.


12:00am -- Grand Hotel (1932)
Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through scandal and heartache.
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford.
Dir: Edmund Goulding.
BW-113 mins, TV-PG

Won the Oscar for Best Picture

Joan Crawford was irked by Greta Garbo's insistence on top billing and decided to take her revenge. Knowing that Garbo loathed tardiness and Marlene Dietrich in equal measures, Crawford played Dietrich records between shots and made sure to arrive late on set.


2:00am -- Two Faced Woman (1941)
A woman pretends to be her own twin sister to win back her straying husband.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Constance Bennett.
Dir: George Cukor.
BW-90 mins, TV-G

Greta Garbo's last film was originally condemned by the National Legion of Decency for its immoral attitude towards marriage, and impudent suggestive scenes, dialogue and situations, and costumes. After the original print was revised, it was removed from the condemned list.


3:45am -- The Kiss (1929)
A woman's generosity to an amorous youth leads to tragedy.
Cast: Greta Garbo, Lew Ayres, Conrad Nagel.
Dir: Jacques Feyder.
BW-62 mins, TV-PG

MGM's (and Garbo's) last silent picture.


5:00am -- The Divine Greta Garbo (1990)
Glenn Close hosts this documentary featuring film clips and rare behind-the-scenes footage that reveal how Greta Garbo's film career reflected her life.
BW-46 mins, TV-G

Garbo, according to movie director Jacques Feyder: "At 9 o'clock a.m. the work may begin. "Tell Mrs. Garbo we're ready" says the director. "I'm here" a low voice answers, and she appears, perfectly dressed and combed as the scene needs. Nobody could say by what door she came but she's there. And at 6 o'clock PM, even if the shot could be finished in five minutes, she points at the watch and goes away giving you a sorry smile. She's very strict with herself and hardly pleased with her work. She never looks rushes nor goes to the premières but some days later, early in the afternoon, enters all alone an outskirts movie house, takes place in a cheap seat and gets out only when the projection finishes, masked with her sunglasses".

[Staph]

1. Greta Garbo Profile

Stardates: Born September 18, 1905 in Stockholm, Sweden; died 1990.
Star Sign: Virgo
Star Qualities: The sculpted face, the hooded eyes, the enigmatic half-smile. Above all, the sense of mystery and irresistible allure. Star Definition: “Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyze this woman’s acting; I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera.” – Bette Davis
Galaxy Of Characters: Grusinskaya in Grand Hotel (1932), Christina in Queen Christina (1933), Marguerite Gautier in Camille (1936), Ninotchka in Ninotchka (1939).

Greta Garbo is arguably the quintessential embodiment of the Hollywood star system. Her beautiful, glamorous, Sphinx-like image--carefully cultivated by her employer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer--captivated American and European viewers of both the silent screen of the 20s and sound films of the 30s. Garbo's personal decision to leave her film career in 1941 and maintain a notoriously private, reclusive lifestyle has only further enhanced her mystique. As a young model, she made her first screen appearances in Swedish advertising films and as an extra in features as early as 1921. While attending the Royal Dramatic Theater School, she was chosen by noted film director Mauritz Stiller to play the lead in The Atonement of Gosta Berling (1924) and he renamed his protegee "Garbo." After she gained further acclaim costarring with the legendary tragedienne Asta Nielsen in G.W. Pabst's The Joyless Street (1925), she followed Stiller to Hollywood (and MGM) in 1925.

Metro was primarily interested in the services of Stiller, but at his request they gave Garbo a modest featured player's contract. She first appeared in two Latin love stories drawn from torrid Vicente Blasco-Ibanez novels. As a Spanish peasant girl in The Torrent (1926) and a vamp in The Temptress (1926), Garbo received favorable reviews, but she seemed indistinguishable from any number of other Hollywood actresses of the time. However, her breakthrough came when MGM paired her with the silent screen's most popular leading man, John Gilbert, in the unrestrained romance Flesh and the Devil (1927). By all accounts, the two developed an instant and intense romantic rapport that carried over on-screen and encouraged the publicity and gossip about her off-screen life that has followed Garbo ever since. Following the success of Flesh and the Devil, Garbo demanded a raise in her salary, from $600 to $5,000 per week. MGM at first refused her terms, so she sailed to Sweden and remained there for nearly a year until the studio's executives arrived with a new contract. Her indifference to stardom served only to fuel her legend even more.

Upon returning to Hollywood, Garbo was given the ultimate star treatment. She worked only with leading directors, most notably Clarence Brown (seven times), but also Sidney Franklin, fellow Swede Victor Sjostrom, Jacques Feyder, Edmund Goulding, George Cukor and Rouben Mamoulian. More important, MGM captured the expressive, enigmatic nuances of her now-famous face by employing her favorite (and the studio's best) cinematographer, William Daniels, on almost all of her films. While conceding to working conditions dictated by the star (including closed sets and no overtime), Metro fashioned Garbo's public image until it was the epitome of the studio's glamorous excess.

It was during this time that Garbo developed the repertoire of roles that defined her as an actress. Although MGM avoided ruthless typecasting, the parts developed for its leading female star almost invariably presented her in period costume as a melancholy exotic who sacrifices her happiness for an unattainable love. She returned to the screen as the tragic Anna Karenina (again opposite John Gilbert), in Love (1927), a role she would reprise for Clarence Brown in 1935. In her six remaining silent features Garbo costarred with Gilbert once (A Woman of Affairs, 1928), but she continued to shine opposite other leading men (Nils Asther, Conrad Nagel) as the woman who must pay for her extramarital affairs, in her three 1929 films, the lush Wild Orchids, The Single Standard and Hollywood's last major silent, The Kiss.

Finally, MGM permitted the last of its silent stars to speak on the screen, releasing Clarence Brown's version of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie (1930) with the famous ad line "Garbo Talks!" American audiences and critics responded favorably to her husky voice, even though Garbo despised her performance. (She was much more pleased with the German and Swedish versions of the film that Jacques Feyder directed for MGM's European release.) After the success of Anna Christie, Garbo appeared in a string of banal dramas which critics found redemeed only by her charismatic presence. But her career was again bolstered by the acclaimed Grand Hotel (1932), in which she uttered her trademark line, "I want to be alone," and by Queen Christina (1933). In the latter, opposite John Gilbert for the last time, Garbo received her best notices, though she was essentially reprising her familiar role as the tragic diva who sacrifices for her lover.

Over the next three years, MGM built three other expensive costume dramas around Garbo in this role--Anna Karenina (1935), Camille and Conquest (both 1937)--but only Camille duplicated the radiance of her 1933 performance.

Having made ten silent and a dozen sound films at MGM, all tragic dramas, Garbo concluded her career with a pair of comedies. Her winning performance as a Russian spy in Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939) elevated her to a surprising new level of acclaim. But the disastrous attempt to present Garbo as a domesticated American in George Cukor's Two-Faced Woman (1941) slowed her resurgence. Then the divine Duse-figure whose image had captured the public imagination for two decades retired suddenly and permanently. That she shunned publicity ever afterward merely encouraged the mythos which prompted critic Roland Barthes to write, "Garbo still belongs to that moment in cinema when capturing the human face still plunged audiences into the deepest ecstacy ... where the flesh gives rise to mystical feelings of perdition."

Biography supplied by TCMdb

* Films in Bold Type air on 8/7

[Matilda]

2. Today's "stars" could take a leaf out of Garbo's book.

"Always leave them wanting more".

Today we have to put up with the so-called stars parading around semi-naked, telling all about one
tedious love affair (or should that just be sex romp - I doubt love comes into it) after another,
and there is simply nothing left you'd want to know.

The thing about Garbo was that even her best friends either didn't know, or weren't telling, very
much about her. And the mystery will only deepen as more time goes by. Long after the Lindsay
Lohans and Nicole Kidmans of this world are gone and forgotten, people will still wonder about the
mystery that was Garbo.