When Garbo Kept Coming Back

Camille (1936) A Surprise 50's Success

Garbo’s “Swedish Sphinx” hung on her like flypaper, even unto decades of retirement. Street-sightings and camera peers under brim of her hat was extent of exposure after she quit movies in 1942 to pursue private life. Movies GG had done meanwhile lay fallow. There was reissue of Ninotchka in the late 40’s that sputtered, balance of hers either too dated to send back out, or a matter of who'd care? What few saw coming was risen star she’s be with mid-50’s bestow of a special Academy Award and LIFE magazine's splash to arouse curiosity of dental patients across the country (we’ll never again see a magazine with LIFE’s kind of mass circulation --- every parlor and waiting room had them). MGM hopped aboard and test-booked Camille to gauge temperatures. What they divined was boiling heat, Camille to surpass even new product sent out by the Lion. Ads boosted the Oscar, LIFE’s bouquet, and of course, eternal mystery that was Garbo herself. It seemed a new-old star was born. Question, then --- could it sustain beyond Camille for continued sale of GG backlog?

Camille clicked because watchers liked the movie plus Garbo. It had romance, Robert Taylor (still mainstream popular), literary snob appeal (catnip for art-housing), plus satisfaction of curiosity as to just what Mom/Dad’s idea of a film idol was all about. Not unlike the late-30’s revive of Valentino, him gone for years prior, but still active in imagination of those who had kneeled at his alter. I looked at Camille again after coming across the above Cleveland ad from 1955. How might we have responded to 1936 romance in that year of Rebel Without A Cause and Kiss Me Deadly? Pleasing was fact that Camille still clicked, at least for me. I had seen it first in 1977 at a month-long theatrical feed of Metros, so there was good impression 35mm left, same as ’55 crowds would have experienced. Presentation as always makes the difference. Camille streams in HD at Vudu, looks a million, and that helps realize how the show meant much to that couple of generations that responded to it in 1936 and again in 1955. Threshold question for us moderns is how to take Garbo, assuming we elect to take her at all. Where does she stand among Favorite Folk on TCM? The network must have rankings, internal ones if not what they share with viewership. DVD sales for her were said to be tepid, so just when did the Garbo mystique wear off?

1955 Variety noted most teens going “Huh?” where Garbo’s name came up. It was thirteen years since her last work after all, an eternity in the lives of youth. For them, much of Camille would be purest hoke, yet there was something modern about Garbo’s performing, a Euro distance from Hollywood artifice as ladled out in the 30’s. Was she precursor to fashionable imports as seen nightly at art houses on 50’s rise? Any talent so otherworldly might extend fascination to a next generation, and maybe ones to come, which seems to have been case for Garbo, as she kept turning up, and on paying basis, to arties and revival houses well into the 70’s. Record checks show festivals beyond Gotham --- Charlotte had a Garbo week during the mid-60’s, and we know MGM’s Perpetual Product Plan from earlier in that decade used at least six of hers in rotation. Critics and not a few plain folks went years referring to her as “Most Beautiful” of all screen stars, or Most Luminous, Hypnotic … take your pick. What’s left to sort out is when and why did that end? Our “One World” finds personalities off the Continent less remote or exotic than Grandparents would have, so there’s partial explanation. For the rest, it may be movies that don't excite like before. William K. Everson once cited Garbo as a great star who never made a really great movie. She falls between cracks of early 30’s stuff we otherwise like, being not of precode milieu as currently understood and enjoyed best. Ones of hers roughly within the category --- Inspiration and Susan Lenox notable --- are in fact undone by heavy laden presence of the star. Norma Shearer or Myrna Loy would have been more fun given the same commission.

Camille is Code-compliant, but tells its adult story effectively. Films by 1936 could achieve this, if done artfully enough. Goldwyn succeeded with Dodsworth in a same year; it, like Camille, does not feel denuded. Garbo as mistress to chilly aristocrat Henry Daniell is understood, not overstated. Assumption can be made that Camille is sleeping with Robert Taylor's Armand, but interpretation to the contrary might also be supported. So much of the Code era was letting individual audience members read things their own way, and giving offense to no one. Camille got by with slightly more thanks to gilt-edged literary antecedent and Metro skill at negotiation with Breen. Camille is as much art direction as drama, period/setting a reward even where narrative flags. This is one that George Cukor’s reputation may rest comfortably on. He pulls what surely is Garbo’s definitive talkie performance, or at least the one she’d be best remembered for. Tricky end of the known character was cough and death rattle that was already topic of spoofs as the pic got made, so wisely, Garbo plays that aspect down. Whatever Carol Burnett lampooned as the character on TV, it surely wasn’t GG.

Notion that Great Novels Make Great Films isn’t much supported anymore, difference being so few reading classic novels, let alone schools and colleges teaching them. Metro adaptations enjoyed built-in attendance, at least awareness, among the educated. Where even high-schoolers knew who Camille was in 1936, and not a few bookworms as late as 1955, now it’s nobody and nowhere, revival marquee with Greta Garbo in Camille likely to draw 100% blank. Maybe that’s why I never hear of it being shown outside of TCM. How is it that a Pride and Prejudice, in fact much of Jane Austin, sustains, and Camille does not? Ones better versed at literature might enlighten me here. MGM really did work a miracle of making content like this accessible to a mass audience, giving succor to a mob that could be entertained as well as enriched. This was one of countless ways old Hollywood flattered its public. You could go see Camille, then impress friends who read books. Everybody won. Smart guys like Thalberg, who produced Camille, understood that nothing commanded respect like awareness of man’s finer achievements, be it art, literature, or dare one suggest, motion pictures. Camille and kin aimed for high targets, and much of the time, hit them. They were good for the industry then, and still rewarding to look at today.