Movies

Camille (1921 & 1936) The Greta Garbo/Robert Taylor rendition of this story includes in an offhand manner the silent version starring Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino, and I found it to be by far the more enjoyable of the two. It is short, spare and clean, in a modern setting with a small cast, mostly on modernistic sets which could have been designed by Jim Woodring. The styles of the day are unfamiliar enough to me that I thought they might as well have set it on Mars rather than Paris. Valentino is not at his best here, rather antic, but his function is to make Nazimova look good. Clad in metallic gowns, with a huge head of curly hair, she sometimes resembles a splendid chrome radiator ornament. She was certainly up to the demands of silent film acting, with a vibrant and active countenance. I don't know how the original story goes, but her lonely demise with only her memories of love to comfort her was genuinely touching, and I wiped away more than one tear. Compared to the serpentine Nazimova, Garbo is a bit of a stick and half of her scenes are stolen by some secondary comedy relief character. I have not yet seen anything which helps me understand her popularity. Her version is a big money costume melodrama, full of tufted satin and gilt rococo woodwork which I have always found rather sickening, and plenty of expensive scenes and set-pieces which do nothing to advance the plot or dimensionalize the flat characters. Robert Taylor emotes manfully, but the finale with its formulaic reconciliation and gabby impassioned monologues only prompted the very slightest choking-up for just a moment. I was surprised they didn't figure out some way to let her live at the last moment. 1921 - 8/10; 1936 - 5/10