As a biopic of the infamous World War I spy forget about historical exactitude; for a romanticized look at the legend and some indication as to why Greta Garbo remains an icon, sit back and enjoy the mush on display here. The MGM version of history has it that the deadly spy sacrificed everything for the love of Ramon Novarro's Russian aviator. I'd watched him in the silent "The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg" a few days ago and thought then how incredibly shallow he seemed. Pitched against Garbo, although some six years older, he seems so immature and puppyish that the viewer can only sit back in disbelief.
As for Garbo, the story has it that when she arrived in Hollywood, she was made to slim down to conform with U.S. standards of glamour. Seeing her here with her slightly flat chest and boyish hips, she still looks ever so womanly in comparison with today's size zero standards. However, she is postively gorgeous and one can see just how much the camera loved her. Fortunately her dance sequence is mercifully brief or we would wonder just what it was about Mata Hari that made men her slaves and ready to face the firing squad, but as Garbo struts about for her Russian paramour, Lionel Barrymore before he was confined to wheelchair roles, and her spymaster, normally benevolent Lewis Stone, she is magnetic. OK this is hokum of the first order, but so lovingly done.
1 comment:
She'd got that slow voice that you sort of hanged on an edge for the next word........but stunningly beautiful. Very deep as well as though every word was weighted. She had her own style and it worked. Rache
Saw Stardust!!..............down as my 'wanting to feel as mushy' movies.......I loved it :) Rache
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