Though rightly celebrated for Greta Garbo’s beauty, command & delicate emotional navigation as The Lady of the Camellias in the old theatrical warhorse about a Parisian courtesan, CAMILLE also serves as a rite-of-passage for George Cukor into front-rank Hollywood directors. The best of his earlier work (WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD; BILL OF DIVORCEMENT /’32; LITTLE WOMEN/’33; DINNER AT EIGHT/’34, DAVID COPPERFIELD/’35) had David O. Selznick fingerprints on them as producer or studio exec, but here a distinctive period voice emerges. (Then an equally distinctive contemporary voice in HOLIDAY/’38, his next film.) According to Cukor, the script was largely Zoe Akins’ doing, and what a swift-moving unsentimental thing she makes of it. Opened up from the stage version without gaining bloat or losing character texture. There’s a fabulous nearly sadistic scene at the piano for Garbo and rich, older lover William Daniels. Terrifying. While as her young lover, Robert Taylor’s high gloss had yet to harden. And plenty of tasty support in all other directions; Laura Hope Crews triumphantly vulgar, and Lionel Barrymore almost trimming his sails as Taylor’s father. (This must be the only version of the story that skips over a ruined reputation wrecking a sister’s upcoming marriage to force renunciation.) Even the end goes briskly. The only thing that does let the side down a bit is Herbert Stothart’s typically subpar music score. Bits of Chopin & nips of Verdi’s TRAVIATA are fine, but then his own love theme comes up, starting as a near quote of Eddie Cantor’s big hit ‘Makin’ Whoopee’ . . . . in half-time. Sheesh.
DOUBLE-BILL: On the same DVD, a 1921 silent version of CAMILLE with the decidedly unnaturalistic stylings of Alla Nazimova, a great actress of a very different stripe. Staying close to the play, this modernized version grows on you after an OTT First Act; and features a winning perf from Rudolph Valentino, in his breakout year, in the Robert Taylor young lover role.
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