Product Description

Sixteen minutes or so into this adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize play 1930 audiences got what they were waiting for when Greta Garbo made her entrance and spoke on camera for the first time in her career: "Gimme a whiskey." Like Lon Chaney and Charlie Chaplin the Swedish Sphinx had continued in Silents even though Talkies were the rage. Here she made her landmark transition to the new era playing a former prostitute whose past may ruin her chance for happiness. A different director and cast join Garbo in a German-language version (Side B) filmed on the same soundstages immediately after the English version. She called it the better film and many fans today agree. You decide!Running Time: 175 min.System Requirements: Running Time 175 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 012569674370

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63904 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-09-06
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English, German
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 174 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
It's one of the most highly anticipated entrances in movie history: Greta Garbo slinking into a sleazy waterfront bar and ordering whiskey. Well, "visky." A huge silent star, Garbo was speaking her first lines in her first talking picture, Anna Christie, and audiences were breathless with anticipation. As The New York Times put it, "The low enunciation of her initial lines, with a packed theater waiting expectantly to hear her first utterance, came somewhat as a surprise yesterday afternoon in the Capitol, for her delivery is almost masculine." Her sultry tones were nevertheless a hit, and anyway the Swedish accent fit the character.

Anna Christie is adapted from Eugene O'Neill's play, a piece of gloom about prostitute Anna returning to her seafaring father (George F. Marion) and falling for a sailor (Charles Bickford). The movie's fascination as a Garbo milestone and slice of early-sound Hollywood easily outstrip its actual value as a work of art, for it has not aged especially well. Under the direction of Garbo regular Clarence Brown, the dialogue tends to fall on long, dead pauses and creak with early-sound-era uncertainty. But the print for the DVD release looks very good, and despite her sometimes dodgy approach to English, it's still Garbo--odd, sexy, uncategorizable. The DVD also includes the German-language version, directed by Jacques Feyder, with Garbo and a German cast; the print quality is not as felicitous as the American version but it's an intriguing contrast, and Garbo looks slightly more comfortable in speaking. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

German with English subtitles version is better!
Of the two versions I saw, I preferred the German version with English subtitles. Garbo's performance as well as that of the supporting cast was more inspired. I will keep looking for that version before I buy!

A GARBO MILESTONE.
The once highly esteemed script-writer, Frances Marion, faithfully followed the text of the famous Eugene O'Neil play which starred Blanche Sweet on Broadway in the early twenties. Bette Davis, who was a devout "Garbomaniac" (as Garbo fans were called in the thirties), once stated about Garbo's acting: "What Garbo did on the screen was sheer witchcraft... I cannot analyze this woman's acting". In her first sound film, after what seems an eternity, Garbo finally comes into view, weary and cynical, she says to the bartender: "Gif me a viskey - chinger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby!". Her voice was blissfully right on target! This 1930 antique is very talky and reminds one of a silent movie with dialogue. If it were not so well-acted, it would be very tiresome indeed. Garbo's voice was noted as being in strange and beautiful accord with the Garbo personality of the silent pictures. Garbo had, more than than any other actress on the screen in the early thirties, the ability to emit the power of suggestion, and, in infinite degrees, expose the isolated mysteriousness of the human soul. Charles Bickford does quite well as the Irish seaman, and as the the old waterfront hag, Marthy Owens, Marie Dressler put an infinite amount of detail in her excellent (albeit a bit hammy) characterization; Garbo was so impressed by Dressler's performance that she personally brought a bouquet of chrysanthemums to Dressler's home in appreciation. On both the stage and screen, George Marion seemed destined to be old Chris; his remarks about "Dat old davil sea" has made audiences laugh for over 70 years.

Garbo speaks....and speaks.......and speaks!
"Anna Christie" is most famous as the film which released Greta Garbo from the silent era, the last major star to make the transition. The marketing of the film ensured that this was a major cinematic event and the film was a box office smash but it does not really stand the test of time.

Based on a depressing Eugene O'Neill play, this is an unusual piece for Garbo because she plays a contemporary figure surrounded by 3 character actors in demanding parts. She suffers by comparison. George Marion as her father and Marie Dressler as the mistress create incredibly real people. The scenes with Dressler are wonderful; Garbo, the mistress of underacting, with Dressler, the mistress of overacting, and meeting in the middle with genuine rapport. Charles Bickford as the boorish Irish lover is good too but he has no charisma, no screen magnetism. It is just not convincing that Garbo could fall for him.

The film has endless talk, little action, a static camera and a soundtrack which is often hard to understand. Garbo's unease with the Amercian slang is obvious with some of her line readings emphasing the wrong words. The story has a poor ending, flicking from hysteria to rationalisation in the flick of an eye and with what has gone on before, it is easy to speculate that this motley group have got lots of bad times ahead.

The print of the film is surprisingly good and far superior to other Garbo DVDs of later talkies. The DVD comes with the German version of the film too. This version is shorter and darker. Garbo looks more seedy and it is obvious that she is more comfortable with the German language.

The DVD is best purchased as part of one of the Garbo collections because only then will you obtain any extras which will tell you more about the star and the film.