Queen Christina is one, a movie to be cherished by lovers of history and the worshippers of this mythical performer. The Hobart Stothart score is strictly early thirties but for some strange reason it enhances this nearly 70-year-old movie with its faded woodwinds and violins. A real liability is the miscast John Gilbert whose voice sounds like sandpaper over shattered glass. His bulging eyes and dark lipstick hardly help him. Only in his death scene does he become touching. Garbo is phenomenal. Even when she's playing the absurd scenes of her posing as a boy (I doubt if even gay men back then wore lipstick and false eyelashes in rough and tumble inns), she galvanizes the screen. Her best scene, one of many: when she drifts around the room in the inn, after a night of love with Gilbert, and she tells him she's memorizing the room because she will be returning to visit it many times in the future. The greatest shot is the final one when she stands at the head of the boat, facing a receding Swedish shore, accompanied by her dead lover, and stares into the distance. Fantastic scene, great scoring by Stothart, brilliant direction by Rouben Maumolian and photography by William Daniels. A masterpice by all involved--and towering above everyone is the magnificent Garbo!

Garbo is enchanting as Queen Christina in this moving film. The highlights are numerous, but notable among them is the scene where she undresses in the inn, to the surprise and delight of the Spanish envoy, Antonio. The next sequence is a curtained bed at the break of dawn. Hmmm, wonder what happened in between time? Another moving scene occurs as the queen addresses her subjects. Her consternation, coupled with love and agony, is both poignant and subtle as she speaks to her people "who are said to love [her], but do not wish [her] to be happy." The final shot is poetry in action, captured for the ages. The ship has set sail, and Garbo, st the stern, the wind rustling around her- she, who feels freedom and yet has tasted sorrow and despair, is framed like the Mona Lisa- subtle, sublime, sensuous- somewhere between the extremes of human passion, she becomes art- transfixed in a moment that shines above the commonplace and reaches for the extrodinary. Here she is at her pinnacle. Here is the moment- preserved and completed- never to be equaled or repeated. Buy it or miss the experience.

QUEEN CHRISTINA 1933 was the first in a series of great melodramas Greta Garbo filmed in the 30s. The others were ANNA KARENINA, CAMILLE, CONQUEST and the comedy NINOTCHKA. In this film Garbo is at her magic best. She doesn^t have to act. Her magic is divine. The production is lush, you HAVE to experience Garbo in this

Camille comes close, but this is her best film. Wonderfully realized production in the gorgeous Mamoulian style. Unlike most films of the early 30s, it holds up very well today as a stately, yet quirky, piece of myth/history. The last shot is justifiably famous, one of the best in film history.

Der Schatten der Garbo reichte mittlerweile so weit, daß sie das Skript, die Schauspieler und den Regisseur ihrer neuesten Produktion bestimmen durfte: Königin Christine erklomm den schwedischen Thron im Alter von 6 Jahren als ihr Vater Gustaf Adolf starb. Sie genießt große Verehrung bei der Bevölkerung, die allerdings reserviert auf ihre Liebe zu einem spanischen Gesandten reagiert. In der Rolle von John Gilbert, durch dessen Einfluß die Karriere der damals in USA unbekannten Garbo 6 Jahre zuvor einen Aufschwung bekam. Da sie ihn nicht heiraten darf verzichtet sie im Alter von 28 Jahren auf den Thron. In der Realität war Christine tatsächlich der letzte weibliche Regent des schwedischen Thrones bis Königin Sylvia in unseren Tagen. Obwohl der Film vom Zusammenspiel (das letzte Mal) von Greta und John Gilbert lebt, wurde der Film ein Klassiker in Kreisen homoerotischer Kultur. Vielleicht wegen einer kurzen Szene mit ihrer Dienerin Elizabeth Young, der sie einen Kuß auf den Mund gibt. Der Film war sehr erfolgreich und zeigt diesmal eine quicklebendige und agile Garbo mit enormen Tatendrang und Bewegung. Übrigens lacht sie herzlich mehrere Male in dem Film, also nicht das erste Mal später in "Ninotschka". Man nimmt unbewußt teil an dem Schicksal der Königin/der Garbo die trotz mancher Arroganz nahe und menschlich wirkt. Die Nichterfüllung ihrer Liebe macht betroffen und sie zu einem seelenverwandten Freund und Kumpel, mit dem man seine eigenen Erfahrungen - die in der modernen Zeit durchaus ähnlich sein können teilt.

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