Garbo Flaunts Gioconda Tradition

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 34, 1 March 1935, Page 24

Garbo Flaunts Gioconda Tradition

Star Appears as Young and Smiling Girl | in. Maugham’ s "The Painted ’ Veil," Released in. Wellington at Week-end-"Beyond: Bengal’ is Almost: Too Exciting-Hollywood’s Struggles with the. Classics.

J{NGLISH and American film fans seem to haye become gravely concerned over the fact that Garbo, in her newest picture, "The Painted Veil," actually smiles. These worthy souls — apparently feel that the carefully nurtured air of aloofness and mysterious charm that have been among Garbo’s prificipal "stage props" should be preserved at any cost. And the ultimate cost, let us say quite frankly, would be the eclipse of the screen’s most amazing personality. But Garbo js too clever to allow her career to be smothered by those fans who would see her portrayed. in Gioconda roles ad infinitum, Ty ‘""The Painted Veil" she breaks away. She shows herself as a young and smiling girl-caught in her bridesmaid’s frock in a shower of rain, making coffee for her father in the kitchen, greeting the waterfront of Hong-Kong with shining eyes and parted lips, And the audience which gathered at the De Luxe Theatre, Wellington, for the New Zealand premiere the other evening loved this new star. The screen version is adapted from Somerset Maugham’s story-and the atmosphere of China has been captured with fidelity. Katrin is an Austrian girl who marries a young*doctor stationed on the China coast. She goes with him to Hong-Kong and there falls in with the "smart set"-the Europeans who try to live an old life in a new setting. Among them ig a handsome young man attached to the consulate. The inevitable happens and Katrin falls between two stools-her

lover will not sacrifice his position for her, her husband refuses to condone her offence. 'THE_ picture moves on to a small Chinese town, 3800 miles inland, where the whole population is down with cholera. The doctor is summoned ‘there’ and insists that a wife’s place is beside her husband. And so the unhappy caravan sets out and the grimness of the journey and the horror of the stricken little town are. cleverly portrayed. For the ‘doctor there is forgetfulness in the gargantuan task of checking the disease and fighting petty officialdom; for Katrin there is nothing but her own conscience. But in time she understands the meaning of the words that her husband had uttered with such bitterness-a wife’s place is beside her husband. No higher praise can one give to Garbo in this picture than to say that only one other woman in the world could have ‘played the part with such sincerity; that woman Elizabeth Bergner, the actress that Europe is hailing’ as a ‘second Bernhardt. HOLLY woop seems to be suffering a few reverses in its struggle with the classics of literature, ‘"The Forsyte Saga," originally planned as a vehicle for Katharine Hepburn, has been abandoned as "too involved for pictures," while the adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s story. "The Raven," has defeated half a dozen script writers to date. The reception. given by the American public to "Great Expectations," the vanguard of the Dickens invasion, has hardly been ex-

citing. In Los Angeles, where 234 free passes were sent out to English teachers in the city schools, only four were presented at the-theatre. In consequence. the studios have begun to doubt ‘the box-office appeal of Dickens.

['WO years ago elephants, tigers and curly-headed cannibals wee vying for movie honours with Garbo and Shearer. But since then Hollywood

‘has given jungle films a rest, with the result that the latest animal film, "Beyond Bengal," which was privately screened in Wellington the other evening (and is enjoyine a phenomenal season in Sydney) shonicd prove very popular when it is released in New Zealand. And there’s ‘nothing Hollywooden about "Beyond Bengal"; it’s an honest-to-God jungle picture for almost its en+ tire length, and just about as exciting ) as anything that’s ever been projected ; on a movie screen. "BEYOND BENGAL" is mostly concerned with an expedition into the interior of Malay, and the adventures that befell the traveilers have been gathered into a film that leaves one perspiring with excitement. Tigers and black panthers sneak in and out of the jungle beside the camera, elephants stampede and overturn native boais. erocodiles open their wide jaws and snap up struggling figures in the water. In fact, toward the end of the picture, when the caravan is making its way across the crocodile-infested river, I found myself hugging my knees in a paroxysm of anxiety. But everything comes out right in the end-as even jungle pictures should. [Editor’s note.-‘‘Beyond Bengal" must have been as exciting as our film critic suggests. He has just handed in a request for a new tie to replace the one which he chewed to pieces during the ‘screening !]