The Writer's Poke

In Camille (1934), which I just watched, Greta Garbo plays an older woman. A younger man falls in love with her, and she eventually falls in love with him, even though she should know better. Well, that's essentially what happens in Mata Hari, too. This time, instead of a courtesan, she's a German spy. Set in 1917, she's "stationed" in Paris, and in flies this younger Russian airman, Lt. Alexis (Ramon Navarro). Hari wears these elaborate outfits, and when Lt. Alexis sees her at the casino, he buys a ring from another woman who needs money to gamble, and then he gives the ring to Hari, a token of his affection. Originally, you can tell that Hari knows better than to get involved with this guy, but he's persistent, and she's weak. She could have flown to Amsterdam and got away before getting caught, but she refuses to leave Paris, and that leads to her downfall. Like I said, they fall in love, but there's no way for them to be together, and unfortunately...

This one is included with on the Camille (1936) DVD, and its runtime is just over an hour. Nicely preserved. I had no idea what I was going to get here. Nazimova -- did she just go by her last name? -- plays the role of Margueritte. What stands out about her in this performance is her wildly bushy hair, as well as the way she kind of slinks around a room. Based on the Alexander Dumas novel, we already know what the plot is -- especially if we've just watched the Garbo film version on the same DVD. Overall, I like the concision of this version. The black and white looks sharp. Those interested in Nazimova might find her Wikipedia entry instructive. In it, we learn that she's a Russian-born American actress. She appeared in 20 films, and her sexuality was apparently open. Born in 1879, she is about 42 when she portrays Margueritte, about 11 years older than Garbo was, and more appropriate to the age that I imagined Marguerite to be. I noted that a few Letterboxd reviewers wanted...

Some reviews on Letterboxd are essentially: I love Garbo. That's fine, but your appreciation for an actor doesn't equate to a 5-star review. I like a lot of actors, and most of them have been in movies of varying quality. When posting a review, even if it's just a sentence, my view is: it would be helpful to focus on the quality of the movie and not simply give a rating to an actor's appearance in said movie. All that said, I would agree that Garbo is an icon. She takes on roles that most actresses couldn't, and I like that as an actress, she's usually the center of the film, and not a throw-away after thought. In this film, Garbo plays Marguerite -- a kept woman, a courtesan. A quick Google search explains that a courtesan is not a prostitute but is a woman who basically "sells her favors" to a rich man so that she can live in the manner of a rich person. Favors include sex. As long as she's content living that lifestyle, no problem, but she reco...

This is one of those crime dramas that has the weird feeling of U.S government propaganda. I say that just because, at the beginning of the film, Senator George Smathers (Florida, 1951-1969) sits behind his desk and gives a brief pep talk about how the Government is working hard to stamp out crime. I mean, that's fine and everything, but I've seen other films where a government official says a few words at the beginning of a film, and that just seems odd to me. Like crossing the line between church and state -- in this case, Hollywood and state. Just don't. The narrator, too, has the sound of an old-school documentary film narrator. This is a film. Not a documentary. Not a government-produced film. But those would be minor concerns if I connected more to actual content of the film, but I don't. Basically, the good business leaders of Miami want to take action, and they heavy-handedly force an ex-Chicago gangster (now father and overall good guy -- yes, he was a Chicago ...

  Marta Toren died at 30 in early 1957, and finding the films on DVD that she was able to make before her untimely death isn't the easiest task. But after watching her and Bogart in Sirocco (1951), I realized I had left this DVD sitting unwatched for four years. I guess I left it unwatched because it's a newspaper cold war drama, with no stars who stood out to me... But since I now know Toren, I was anxious to give this a watch.  Overall, pleasant surprise. Jimmy Race (Dana Andrews) falls for Jeanne (Toren), and one wonders if a romance will ensue. She seems a little unsure about that, and meanwhile, he needs to go to go to Hungary to follow a story. Unfortunately, he sends back information, gets arrested, suffers torture, and is sentenced to death.  A swap takes place, and Jimmy returns to France. But he's not the same man. He comes back a shell, and we are left wondering if he will be able to recover. That, to me, is the "weird ending" element, because we're...

Some movies automatically click, and others don't. Why? Deanna Durbin, now pretty much a forgotten actress in 2026, except for hardcore movie buffs, was the top paid actress in 1945. Her salary per movie at that point was in the $400,000 range. That still seems like a lot of money today, but keep in mind that in today's dollars, she was making $8 million per movie. Unfortunately for me, this movie doesn't ever click. I want it to, but it doesn't. What I really like about the film is the lighting. This movie has perfect black & white noir lighting. Just perfect. It's fun to see Durbin hit her mark and just watch as her face enters that perfectly prepared lighting. But after the introduction of the original problem -- she sees a murder happen as she's reading a murder mystery and then chances to glance out her train window at just the right moment -- I don't find myself connecting much to the story being told. Maybe it's a problem of splattered genres....