More Greta Garbo

Conquest. (1937, TCM/T, n.) An expensive flop in its day, this Clarence Brown film has been strangely neglected since, despite a literate script, lavish production values, and excellent performances from Charles Boyer and Greta Garbo. Boyer seems at first glance to be an unlikely Napoleon, but turns out to be physically and temperamentally believable. Garbo is his lover, the Polish countess Marie Waleska, and the story of their affair is more sexually and politically sophisticated than you would imagine, which may be exactly why it failed at the box office. It’s a bit drawn out, and there is a limit to the changes Garbo could wring out of historical doomed love affairs, but while her acting is no longer a surprise to me, it is a reliable pleasure. *7*

(This is just the sort of hidden treasure I love to uncover for film series at the Clark, and would have perfect for the “Citizens and Sovereigns” series I planned to accompany the Clark’s current exhibition, “Jacques-Louis David: From Empire to Exile.” But like so many of the excellent films about the French Revolution and Napoleonic empire, it is not available in a decent projectable format, so I don’t regret having been told to make a program supporting the Clark’s 50th anniversary instead. Come to think of it, though, I can post a survey of films about the Napoleonic era on this website. See the exhibition of magnificent David portraits, along with mythological and historical scenes, and then check back here for further pictorializations of revolution and empire in France.)

Two-Faced Woman. (1941, TCM/T, n.) Perhaps it merely defines me as besotted, but I enjoyed this farcical romantic comedy. It was this flop that drove Greta Garbo out of movies for good, but she and Melvyn Douglas serve George Cukor as a mismatched, battling couple almost as well as Hepburn and Tracy. It was racy enough to run into trouble with the Legion of Decency, with Garbo as an earnest ski instructor who tries to woo back her impulsively-married husband, by assuming the persona of her imaginary evil twin, an unabashed golddigger and “lady of joy.” It’s a hoary (and whore-y) set-up, but it gives Garbo a chance to follow up the humor of Ninotchka and even to do a good-sport dance number. If you are tolerant of nonsense, this is an entertaining bit of screwball, and displays a different side of the enigmatic screen deity. *7-*