Queen Christina

Marcia Landy, Amy Villarejo

• Publisher: British Film Institute
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781838717681
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

Each volume in the 'BFI Film Classics' series features a brief production history, detailed filmography, notes and bibliography. This text explores MGM's 1933 production of 'Queen Christina', starring Greta Garbo, from a feminist perspective. The authors explore the role of Christina, who, fleeing an arranged marriage, is forced to disguise herself as a man. They read the film partly from a lesbian perspective, as well as looking at other ways in which gender and power impose contradictory pressures.

'QUEEN CHRISTINA'

From her first US silent film, The Torrent (1926), Greta Garbo was the property of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio that boasted 'more stars than there were in heaven'. Unlike silent stars such as Pola Negri, she not only made the transition to sound in Anna Christie (1930) – in both English and German – but went on to achieve even greater acclaim for her roles in sound films. Filmgoers responded to the fit between her screen persona as the tragic lover and her throaty, accented voice pronouncing her famous first line: 'Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby.' She was a lucrative asset for the studio, and her relations with mogul Louis B. Mayer and his young assistant Irving Thalberg assured her of a certain type of publicity, one which worked in the direction of protecting her privacy. She was permitted minimum exposure to the press, allowing the studio to handle her image. She was not, however, a docile star, and when her contract ended in 1932, she drove a hard bargain with Mayer, refusing to return to work for eighteen months ('I tink I go home,' she is reported to have said to Mayer as she left for Sweden). The studio ultimately relented and gave her the money she demanded, as well as greater power over her films. Along with the $250,000 she was to receive for each picture, she was permitted veto power over names of directors submitted for her approval as well as screenwriters and actors who were to appear in the films.¹

In late 1932, when the studio began pre-production for Queen Christina, she had what in effect amounted to her own production company.² When she learned that the studio gave her a choice between Edmund Goulding and Robert Z. Leonard as director for Queen Christina, she chose Goulding, who, as it turned out, was not available. Ernst Lubitsch was then suggested as a possibility, and Garbo expressed her preference for him over Leonard. Other names the studio considered were Jack Conway, Sam Wood and even Josef von Sternberg, who was working with Marlene Dietrich on The Scarlet Empress at the time. Finally, when the studio proposed Rouben Mamoulian, Garbo cabled to them, 'Approve Mamoulian', and although his price was initially unacceptable to Mayer, MGM finally enlisted him for Queen Christina.

Rouben Mamoulian was, like Garbo, an immigrant to Hollywood. Born in Russia, he studied criminal law at Moscow University and then worked at the Moscow Art Theatre. He went to the US to direct the American Opera Company in Rochester, New York, and moved west in the late 1920s. His first assignment in Hollywood was Applause in 1929, and he established himself as an innovative sound director, 'liberating both camera and sound track'.³ He recalled that he had been brought to Hollywood 'as a stage expert on dialogue, and all I could think of was the marvellous things one could do with the cameras and the exciting new potentials of sound recording'.⁴ Later, he experimented with the dramatic use of colour in Becky Sharp (1935). According to Tom Milne, by the time Mamoulian was asked to direct Queen Christina he was a 'gilt-edged property snatched from Paramount'.⁵ His work on the Garbo film abounds with instances of his innovative handling of the melodrama which, like his experimentation with sound on film, may be accounted for by his operatic background. Garbo's approval of him reflects her ability to select individuals who would enhance her performance. While Mamoulian's desire for complete control over his projects might have conflicted with Garbo's star prerogatives, his preoccupation with women's struggles, evident in his entire oeuvre, enhanced his fit with the Queen Christina project, and the two ultimately worked extremely well together.⁶

In seeking to elevate Mamoulian to the status of an auteur, Mark Spergel, in his biography of Mamoulian, identifies as the director's major preoccupation a dramatic conflict between instinctual drives and a 'nobler potential for the spiritual, Platonic notion of love'.⁷ In many of Mamoulian's films, that conflict is anchored in a woman's struggle against the constraints of convention, as it is in Queen Christina. Like the director, Christina will assert the liberating power of art, of higher and nobler thought, to counter mundane and base behaviour. Mamoulian's attraction to the biopic may or may not be reducible to his own life or to the traditional explanatory strategies of psychoanalysis (Spergel attributes special significance to Mamoulian's experiences with a talented and frustrated mother), but it is clear that he was attracted to the project and found both a vehicle through which to express his preoccupations and personnel congenial to his methods of directing.

Initially, Garbo approved the studio's nomination of Laurence Olivier for the part of Don Antonio, the Spanish ambassador and her lover in the film, and she also approved supporting actors Reginald Owen, Ian Keith, C. Aubrey Smith and Lewis Stone. Olivier was also acceptable to Mamoulian, who had originally wanted John Barrymore for the role. The young Olivier and Garbo made a test of a love scene, and a change in the casting of Don Antonio followed immediately. Olivier later commented that he was 'nervous and scared of [his] leading lady. I knew that I was lightweight for her and nowhere near her stature.'⁸ All accounts of the test confirm that Garbo found the love scene with Olivier unacceptable and that she requested instead John Gilbert, the enormously popular silent star who had played her leading man in three of her silent films. After Garbo rejected Olivier, others, including Leslie Howard, Franchot Tone, Nils Asther and Bruce Cabot, were considered for the role that eventually went to Gilbert, but they declined or were rejected after screen tests.

John ('Jack') Gilbert came to Queen Christina with a tumultuous history regarding both Garbo and the studio. As MGM's leading silent actor, Gilbert had starred with Garbo in the film that established them as a pair, both on screen and off, Flesh and the Devil (1926). The passion between them in the film ignited audience interest in the couple, and the Hollywood gossip machine and the studio's own publicity staff fuelled the flame with rumours that they were indeed a real-life 'item'. There is no doubt that there is some truth behind the rumours: Gilbert provided Garbo with a home in Hollywood for many years and instructed her in the minutiae of star life, from dealings with the studio and the press to selecting an agent (they shared Harry Edington throughout their careers). Publicity for their second feature together further stoked the fires of rumour, as the studio retitled their adaptation of Anna Karenina as Love (1927) to produce the tag line, 'Garbo and Gilbert in Love!'

Garbo's Hollywood persona, however, was at odds with images of domesticity and coupledom, representing most often the tragic heroine doomed to a life 'alone', and another much publicised incident added to her reputation as a loner: Garbo stood Gilbert up at the altar in what was meant to be a double wedding between Garbo and Gilbert and King Vidor and Eleanor Boardman. Whatever the substance of their relations, and there is an evidential push-me-pull-you match still raging in biographical accounts, Garbo and Gilbert were a lucrative and highly commodified product of MGM, and the studio exploited their popularity as far as possible. The same studio, however, wielded its power over Jack Gilbert to more sinister ends. In a vendetta admirably documented by Gilbert's daughter, Leatrice Joy Fountain, Louis B. Mayer successfully fought Gilbert's demands for adequate compensation and control over his films through a smear campaign which prohibited Gilbert from moving into sound film almost altogether.⁹ Queen Christina presented Gilbert with an opportunity to redeem his failing career, and many claim that Garbo's selection of Gilbert was a gracious gesture to a past friend in need. It was rumoured in the press, however, that Garbo had stipulated that there was to be no ardent embrace with Gilbert, and an examination of the film reveals this to be the case. While Gilbert's role in Queen Christina failed to boost his career, it provided Garbo with a sympathetic leading man who was a known quantity, able to put her at ease during production.

Another known quantity on the set of Queen Christina was William Daniels, Garbo's cameraman for most of her films. Daniels contributed to the identifiable style of MGM films of the early 1930s. This carefully fabricated and glossy style is evident in the studio's creation of star types, especially of its female stars. The scripts and the sleek look of the films were attributable in large part to the quality and consistency of the personnel at the studio: producers, writers and technicians.¹⁰ In retrospect, Daniels found Garbo to be 'definitely the most beautiful woman I ever photographed. Her outstanding characteristic is her eyes. That's why we made so many big close ups – to see what she was thinking.'¹¹ During his tenure at MGM, Daniels effectively shaped the Garbo look, experimenting with the available technology, especially as regards lighting, to enhance the image of Garbo which was MGM's hottest commodity.

Daniels claimed to have learned a great deal about innovative lighting from Erich von Stroheim, for whom he worked prior to the Garbo films. In his recollections, Daniels describes how he began to experiment with lighting effects on Stroheim films, learning especially to balance light and dark and to play with reflections. Daniels also takes credit for insisting on filming Garbo on closed sets, although the requirement also squares with Garbo's persona of the maniacally private woman. Working on that intensely close terrain, however it came about, allowed Daniels a significant hand in creating the look associated with Garbo's films. He recalls his role, although he may minimise his contribution: 'I didn't create a "Garbo face". I just did portraits of her I would have done for any star. My lighting of her was determined by the requirements of a scene. I didn't, as some say I did, keep one side of the face light and the other dark. But I did always try to make the camera peer into the eyes, to see what was there. Garbo had natural long lashes and in certain moods I could throw the light down from quite high, and show the shadows of the eyelashes come down on her cheeks; it became a sort of trademark with her.'¹²

Daniels further describes the technique he developed for lighting Garbo in the famous bedroom scene in Queen Christina: 'All the light came from the fire – or seemed to; of course we had to cheat a little by using special small spotlights that illuminated the bedposts in such a way that they seemed to be like the kind of light the flickering flames would make.'¹³ From his work on Queen Christina as well as from the bulk of his films with Garbo, it is evident that Daniels studied his subject matter carefully and was eager to do justice to the star as well as to the more general ambience of the film. Clarence Sinclair Bull, Garbo's chief still photographer at MGM, confirms Daniels' assessment of Garbo's photogenic nature: 'She was the most beautiful woman from a camera standpoint I ever photographed. You could shoot her from any angle.'¹⁴

Adrian, Garbo's dress designer, was another major factor in the creation of what came to be known in the 1930s as the MGM style. His ability to tailor costumes for Garbo's physique and style set fashion rather than followed current trends. 'Garbo isn't very fond of the fashionable hat of the moment, nor is she fond of fashionable hairdos,' he commented in an interview for Photoplay magazine.¹⁵ Instead, the costumes he created for Garbo became in his words 'fashion Fords'.¹⁶ As others on the MGM team scrutinised Garbo to enhance her image, Adrian 'studied Garbo like a surgeon would an X-ray. She was big-boned, square-shouldered, mannish. He accentuated these obstacles to femininity and had a great deal to do with her screen success.'¹⁷ As Jane Gaines has discussed at length, Adrian's costumes provided a clue to the film's ambivalent style by offering what she dubs 'a sartorial essay on sexuality and power'.¹⁸ Gaines' reading of the spectacular dimensions of Adrian's costumes suggests how the film diverges from the usual generic requirements of the royal biopic by emphasising the constructed nature of symbolic power, its making and its unmaking. Gaines' comments on the relation between costume and cultural knowledge, which we will explore at some length in our reading of the film, are also abundantly illustrated in every aspect of the film's production – original sources, initial scripting, readers' reports, costuming, advertising, and even censorship documents.

The recollections of the various workers at MGM who were associated with Garbo's films attest to the regard in which Garbo was held and the extreme care with which she was handled. In fact, even the individuals who worked on her scripts were considered 'Garbo specialists', especially Salka Viertel and S. N. Behrman, who were to work on the screenplay and script for Queen Christina. According to Viertel, an expatriate from Nazi Germany, a friend as well as a professional colleague of the star, it was Garbo who 'urged me to write the film about Christina' (although, as is characteristic of Hollywood reminiscence, others have also claimed to be the originators of the vehicle for Garbo). Viertel further suggests that it was Garbo who brought MGM producer Irving Thalberg to see her, having given him a copy of Viertel's manuscript. 'While he disclaimed interest in historical subjects [an ironic comment for the studio],' Viertel wrote, 'he expressed interest in making the film.'¹⁹

Adrian's 'fashion Fords'

An analysis of the various versions of the script and screenplay reveals the way in which the material was moulded to suit the screen, the times, and the figure of Garbo herself. The first reader's report on Queen Christina, meant to assess the viability of literary material for screen adaptation, is based on Strindberg's Kønigen Christina, and Mr Feyder found the subject suitable 'for a temperamental film star'. Strindberg's view of the queen is negative: Christina brings the country to the verge of disaster. Feyder concludes that 'the palace is a brothel' and the queen, 'although brilliant in intellect and dominating in character, has the temperamental and over-sexed character of a great artist'. Ultimately, Feyder dismisses the source, suggesting that 'the play is entirely too involved and has never had more than a literary success'.²⁰

Jessie Burns, another reader from the script department, assessed Faith Compton Mackenzie's The Sibyl of the North, finding it suitable 'for a mature actress'. Burns' analysis stresses scenes involving Christina's conflicting relationship with her mother, her preference for southern climes (which engenders Magnus' hatred), her lack of patience with women, her hatred of her role as monarch, her possession of 'a strong masculine quality in her makeup [which] turned her in loathing from marriage' and her unconventional life in Europe after her abdication. Burns concludes that the 'strong and splendid character of Christina is traceable through this version of her life and this itself is colorful picture material. But the compilation of events ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 'Queen Christina'
• Notes
• Credits
• eCopyright