Greta Garbo's Movies Get the TV Guide Treatment, Part 3
Continuation of a series (which began here) on Greta Garbo's films, for which I give a plot summary à la TV Guide. We are still in the silent era.
The next film to get a plot summary is "The Divine Woman," A plot summary is mostly what anyone gets these days, because most of the original film was lost in a warehouse fire. We've also got a few stills. But that's pretty much it, which is too bad because the movie has an interesting premise: it's loosely based on the life of actress Sarah Bernhardt, known to fans as "The Divine Sarah."
There's one surviving nine-minute segment of "The Divine Woman," which has translated-to-English Russian cue cards. I found it on YouTube. In this scene, Garbo is an enthusiastic (somewhat manic?) hausfrau type, complete with kitchen apron.
Summary:
Garbo plays Marianne, the daughter of a party girl who would rather not do the Mom Thing. So Marianne's mother finds a farm where the young woman can live, then takes off for the whirl of gay Paree. Mom eventually relents and sends a guy named Simion Legree -- I mean M. Legrand -- to bring her attractive young woman on the long journey to the city. What could possibly go wrong?
After Legrand makes his predictable move, Marianne clocks him hard enough to kill him (she thinks) and she dashes off randomly. A soldier, Lucien, finds her and takes her to his (more reliable and female) friend Madame Pionier, who does other people's laundry in a washtub to earn her living.
Legrand, that creep, turns out not to be dead and he tracks down Marianne and says he can make her a big star on the stage. Marianne, who hasn't seen as many melodramas as you and I have, falls for it. She becomes his mistress. Lucien, concerned about Marianne, deserts the army and is caught and imprisoned. When he gets out on parole, he goes to see Marianne and denounces her. She, still in love with Lucien, renounces her career, and leaves Legrande. Without ill-gotten gains, she runs out of money and decides to end it all but Lucien predictably comes back to save her again. Turns out that he conveniently has a ranch in South America and they go off to start their new life together.
The website "Garbo Forever" has all kinds of info about "The Divine Woman." I recommend taking a look at the lavish movie program.
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On to the next film! Hmm, we won't start with a good sense of "The Mysterious Lady" from looking at this particular movie poster.
Let's try another. I dunno. I like the Art Deco elements but not crazy about Garbo in the position of the faithful Irish Setter.
Enough with the posters. Let's get to the movie. "The Mysterious Lady" is famous for its wonderful scene of romance in an opera box.
Summary:
The aforementioned opera box is in Vienna, and Garbo's character is joined by Captain von Raden, who stood in line and bought a same-day ticket at the theatre office. Alone with a lovely woman called Tania, he feels obligated to put on the moves, but it doesn't work. She does agree to go out for a day in the country with him.
There is then a lot of folderol involving Tania being a Russian spy (played by Garbo of course), an uncle with secret military plans to be delivered, and false accusations of being a traitor, followed by Captain von Raden pretending to be a Serbian pianist who will play a concert in Warsaw. This will somehow help the Captain discover who the real traitor is. Could the Captain play the paino? Well? And what happened to the original Serbian guy?
Either von Raden can play or Fate steps in before he's shown up, because he is offered the chance to play at a private party, and guess who's there? That beautiful Russian spy Tania! Her date is the yucky head of Russian Intelligence. Captain von Raden may not have a wide repertoire, but he can play the overture from the opera that he and Tania attended. She thinks this is wonderful but being a spy, she pretends she didn't notice anything. A bit later, she and the Captain sneak off for a private moment, and they are caught by Tania's date, the Russian Intelligence guy. He takes umbrage and -- invites von Raden to come play the piano at a birthday party he's giving for Tania. Well, that'll teach the rascal.
Now comes a lot more folderol involving an unmarked package, secret messages, and sheets of blank paper substituted for secret messages, followed by a scuffle between Tania and the yucky guy. Remember how Marianne, in Garbo's last film, tried to kill the bad buy but failed? Well, in "The Mysterious Lady," Tania is a trained spy and she plugs the villain, then pretends she didn't and they are having a special private moment so the guards go away. This lets the Captain sneak in, and they grab the non-blank documents and escape. Cue wedding bells. The End.
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"A Woman of Affairs"
Summary: Garbo plays a British aristocrat, which can do if you are Swedish and speak English as a third language as long as you are acting in a silent movie.
Garbo plays Diana, who gets tired of waiting around for her sweetie. They once pledged their love under a special tree, but his family wanted Neville out of the picture. So he was sent to Egypt by his father to make his fortune and to get away from Diana. She marries their mutual friend David, who's also good friends with her brother. During the honeymoon, David kills himself and Diana's brother decides that it's Diana's fault. Diana starts dating very casually while her brother Jeffry drinks until he damages his health. Diana hails a taxi and fetches a specialist to see her brother. Her first love, the one who'd been in Egypt, is back in England and he spots her and the doctor in the cab and follows them.
Diana is still a wild child, and she still loves Neville, so the two of them spend some special time together. On the same night, of course, David dies. And just to make it all wonderful, the specialist makes a house call to Neville's apartment and figures out Diana has spent the night. There will be scandal, because Neville actually has a fiancee, Constance, who he marries within the week. And Diana is (of course) now pregnant.
Neville goes to see Diana at the hospital where she's being seen for her "illness" (the Hollywood version of out-of-wedlock pregnancy), and Constance must have come too, because she overhears Diana saying she's never stopped loving Neville.
Meanwhile, in case Diana's life is not full enough of sunshine and joy, it turns out that her late husband killed himself because he was a crook and pursued by the constabulary. This is bad for Neville because it will ruin him in business. Diana tells Neville that it's Constance who's pregnant -- I think the baby Diana had will be passed off as that of Neville's wife. And Diana, who is a bad girl who ruins everything, drives into the special tree she and Neville stood beneath all those years ago. The End.
In this short clip, we see two sets of men, one set with Brilliantine in their hair, one set in bowler hats (because it's England, dontcha know). (More seriously, a character in trouble with the police and he jumps out the window in this clip. Please don't watch if you have had thoughts of self-harm -- reach out if you need help.)
Hair sweaty when you take off your polo helmet? Apply some hair oil!
Next week: Much silent-era drama and scandal
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