SYNOPSIS

There’s a famous anecdote surrounding QUEEN CHRISTINA: Rouben Mamoulian, directing Garbo during the famous last shot of her standing at the bow of a ship, telling her to ‘think of nothing’. Think of nothing indeed. Who else but Great Garbo, the greatest film actress of the 1930’s, could ‘think of nothing’ and yet project so much? QUEEN CHRISTINA was never going to be a warts-and-all depiction of the great Swedish monarch of the 1600’s, despite, or perhaps because of, Garbo herself being the originator of the project. Instead we have a pristine example of Hollywood filmmaking of the early 1930’s. Director Rouben Mamoulian certainly understood what made Garbo the great enigma she had become but it was the peerless lighting of DOP William Daniels, who had already shot Garbo twice before, that helped create the iconographic legend cinema audiences would remember most. Garbo’s physical perfection is actually exceeded by John Gilbert’s flawless but less interesting physiognomy, and watching the two of them together on screen is a spellbinding experience. Garbo would eventually be remembered mostly for her dour solitude, but she was in fact an exceptional comedienne and although this would be better demonstrated in later films such as CAMILLE and NINOTCHKA, in QUEEN CHRISTINA she is alternately moody, regal, playful, giddily in love, conflicted and ultimately, self-sacrificing. QUEEN CHRISTINA is a gloriously enjoyable film from the first Golden era of Hollywood.


TRAILER


RELEASE DATE

January 01, 1933

DIRECTOR

Rouben Mamoulian

WRITER

H.M. Harwood (screenplay) and Salka Viertel (screenplay)

COMPANY

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

GENRE

Biography, Drama, History, Romance, War

CERT

U

RUNTIME

97 minutes

IMAGES