Queen Christina

The best movie of Garbo

That's what it offers... glamour! The 1930s, that era of the Great Depression, had glamour figured out. Black-and-white cinematography somehow out-glamours color, the sound-stage painted backdrops of Sweden in winter out-glamour the most brilliant computer simulations of today, the langourous flow of sustained scripted scenes out-glamours the quick cuts and fades of current movie-making, and above all Greta Garbo out-glamours anyone in film history. Garbo was ineffably, soulfully gorgeous. Her acting skills, learned in the silent era, were more stagey than the current fashion approves, but she had magical presence on the screen. John Gilbert, the 'fading' silent star whom she demanded as her leading man in this production, was even stagier and perhaps campier in the role of the Spanish Ambassador for whom the Queen abandoned her throne, but he also had glamour, a Prince Charming presence. All in all, "Queen Christina" is a glamourous fairy tale, an operatic opening-night pageant of languid beauty.The film "Queen Christina" is roughly as faithful to Swedish history as the film "Jaws" to the novel "Moby Dick". Hey, they were both about fish! If you want a factual biography of KING Christina Vasa, the most famous woman in 17th C Europe as well as perhaps the most interesting, you'll learn more from five minutes' reading on wikipedia. If you want a plausible depiction of events and society during the Thirty Years War, stick to the writings of Grimmelshausen and stay clear of Hollywood. The passionate love story at the heart of this film is pure invention. Christina's abdication was not an elopement, and it was just the beginning of the most compelling portions of her life. Her years as a girl King under the management of Axel Oxenstierna are in fact rather obscure, and her roughly eight-year reign as her own monarch was anything but successful. In reality, she bankrupted the regency by transfering most of her royal funds into the hands of the greedy nobility, resulting in a concentration of wealth and land-ownership that primed Sweden for centuries of maldistribution, exploitation of the peasantry, and stagnation. Swedish history, until the rise of the labor movement, was a laboratory for the failure of 'pure' capitalism, as absolutely nothing "trickled down". The truly important half of Christina's famous life took place in her years of exile in Italy and France, where she became arguably the greatest Patron of music of the Baroque era, yet music isn't mentioned in the film. Likewise she became easily the most prominent "convert" from Lutheranism to Catholicism; her prominence as a convert, indeed, was so great that her glaring unorthodoxy of belief and of lifestyle was beyond any correction that Papacy might have desired to impose. She was, in short, an 'untouchable' freethinker, an icon of independence for the boldest figures of the next generation. One could, with just a flare of hyperbole, call Christina the first "modern" woman.But back to Garbo! There was an obvious motive for casting the Swedish actress, at the height of her fame, in the role of the Swedish monarch, aside from which the two women may well have had much in common. Garbo's voice, with her Swedish accent quite well modulated, was still a throaty alto, a voice that might have commanded male councilors, a sensuous but plainly masculine voice. Christina WAS raised, in effect, as a man; she did dress as a man at times, sit and walk like a man, dispense with niceties and proprieties like a man. Both Christina and Garbo have been plausibly 'identified' as bi-sexual in orientation. Christina was patently a woman of superior intellect, and one gets the impression that Garbo, who had virtually no school education, was a deep thinker by Hollywood norms. Possibly this similarity of 'being' was what enabled Garbo to occupy the role of Christina so fully. For my mother's generation, Garbo was Christina, and many soulful young beauties aspired to be Garbo.

Great film, good price, and carefully shipped dvd. The whole experience was well worth repeating for other purchases.

The always lovely Greta Garbo, plays the Swedish Queen longing to shuck her crown for a 'normal life' of love with a man. Playing opposite the man she almost married in real life, Gilbert Roland - my favorite scenes are with the two of them in the old fashioned Inn. Wonderful : )Its worth viewing if only to see the two of them working together and their chemistry.

Warner Archive Collection has recently released another excellent Blu-Ray disc, the restored film “Queen Christina”, starring the beautiful and remarkable actress Greta Garbo. It’s a fine story with a great cast, but it’s also possibly Garbo's best performance. The estimable Rouben Mamoulian directs and gives his audience many wondrous close-ups of the famous face through the cinematography of William H. Daniels.The Blu-Ray image of this classic 1933 film is excellent. The audio is very good and dialogue is easy to understand. It’s a film well-worth seeing and is highly recommended. If you’ve ever wondered what’s the big noise about Garbo, this movie will give you the answer. Enjoy.

.....The picture got better when pressure was put upon the Queen to send her Latin lover home and to marry a Swede who would give her an heir to the throne. Garbo turned in some fine acting as she agonized over her final decision to abdicate and to leave with her lover......The movie is interesting to movie buffs because Garbo and Gilbert had been real life lovers. They met on the set of Flesh and the Devil when Gilbert was a Silent Film star and Garbo an unknown newcomer. They lived together for three years but Gilbert wanted marriage and children and Garbo just wanted them to live together. Finally when she refused his final marriage proposal, Gilbert broke off the relationship and married another actress......When sound movies became popular some actors like Gilbert had their careers destroyed while others like Garbo were instant hits and became mega stars. Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM had originally signed Lawrence Olivier to play the part of Antonio in Queen Christiana but Garbo, in an attempt to help Gilbert's sagging career, told Mayer that she would make the movie with Gilbert and nobody else. Mayer, who hated Gilbert and had vowed to destroy his career, gave in to Garbo's demands and cast them together for the last time. Two years later Gilbert was dead at the age of 36......Garbo led a twisted and tormented life and was most likely AC/DC but she probably loved Gilbert as much as she was capable of loving any man and he came the closest to getting her to the altar.

Good to see Greta Garbo but not a very realistic or well produced movie. Not convincingly dressed as a man. Greta Garbo is stunning though and all the other actors pale in comparison. She needed more challenging roles.