George Cukor (1936)
There had been four or five films made of Alexandre Dumas fils‘ La Dame aux Camélias before George Cukor’s Camille. (It’s five counting a 1926 short.) But this MGM adaptation – released a few weeks after the death of its producer, Irving Thalberg – was the first Camille of the sound era and is more famous than any other screen version, before or since. That is thanks to Greta Garbo.
Cukor’s Camille is entertaining, if a bit longer (109 minutes) than it needs to be. The screenplay, by Zoe Akins, Frances Marion and James Hilton, includes plenty of sharp dialogue and skilfully conveys the economics of the Paris demi-monde in the mid-nineteenth century, where famed courtesan Marguerite Gautier (Garbo), aka Camille, makes her living. The action, indoors and out, is sometimes visually fluid to an extent that, rightly or wrongly, I didn’t expect from this director: around a dinner table or in a gambling club; in the countryside, as Marguerite and her inamorato, Armand Duval (Robert Taylor), run happily through a meadow and across a little bridge that leads to their love nest; elsewhere at the Duval country home when a swarm of bees causes a stir for the household. Given that Camille is a premier Hollywood melodrama, Herbert Stothart’s score is rather discreet – or, at least, is discreetly and effectively used.
This story stands or falls, though, on the actress playing the doomed heroine – Marguerite is dying of consumption – and the Thalberg-Cukor Camille is in no danger of falling. Watching Greta Garbo now, she doesn’t strike you as an actress ahead of her time (as her close contemporary Barbara Stanwyck often does). Yet Garbo is so unusual for her time that she stands outside it. The husky voice somehow never fails to surprise when you first hear it again. Her face – the huge eyes with their deep-set lids, a nose larger than the Hollywood 1930s norm – is far more powerfully beautiful than a set of perfect features could be. She turns emotions on and off at lightning speed. Those emotions are often extreme but, because they seem thoroughly felt, not performed, they often transcend their melodramatic context.
It has to be said that Garbo is made even more outstanding by the various acting going on around her. There’s an enjoyable, theatrically busy turn from Laura Hope Crews as the dressmaker who’s also Marguerite’s procuress. There are decent contributions from Henry Daniell, as the haughty aristocrat whose deep pockets are in opposition to less wealthy Armand’s deep devotion; Jessie Ralph, as Marguerite’s loyal maid; and Rex O’Malley, as a dandy with a heart of gold. But Robert Taylor, handsome as he is and hard as he tries, is a very weak partner for Garbo. In her smart, well-prepared introduction to this screening, BFI programmer Ruby McGuigan intentionally majored in female contributions to Camille, on both sides of the camera, and described the character of Armand as ‘rather insipid’. Taylor’s acting, alas, makes that an understatement; he’s remarkable only for his almost luminous teeth (the film is in black-and-white, of course). More surprising is that Lionel Barrymore makes a hash of the small but key role of Armand’s father. Monsieur Duval’s crucial encounter with Marguerite – in which he pleads with her to break off her affair with his son, and she reluctantly agrees – has nothing like the impact it should have. Still, the last scene, in which Marguerite dies in Armand’s arms, is worth waiting for. In the closing shots, George Cukor wisely keeps the camera on Greta Garbo. Even playing dead, she breathes life into Camille.
8 May 2024
