Garbo again

Two weeks ago would have been Greta Garbo's 100th birthday, which was celebrated not just by the long-awaited release of ten of her films on DVD, but also by the best station on tv, Turner Classic Movies, presenting an original documentary by film scholar Kevin Brownlow, titled simply Garbo. This was a profile that went beyond simple clips and interviews to present a complex and intriguing portrait of the mysterious star, but the best moments of all were from a brief screentest from 1949, seven years after her last movie, for a project that never got off the ground, despite the fact that she was clearly still a face that the camera loved, alive with a range of emotion, in spite of her reclusive personality. Garbo is an old-time star whose artistry is still alive, so get Camille or some other films of hers, and settle in for some real Hollywood magic.