Anna Christie (1930 English-language film)

Last updated

Anna Christie
Anna Christie 1930 film.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Clarence Brown
Screenplay by Frances Marion
Based on Anna Christie
1921 play
by Eugene O'Neill
Produced byClarence Brown
Paul Bern
Irving Thalberg
Starring Greta Garbo
Charles Bickford
George F. Marion
Marie Dressler
Cinematography William H. Daniels
Edited by Hugh Wynn
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • February 21, 1930 (1930-02-21)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$376,000 [1]
Box office$1,499,000 [1]
Greta Garbo in her talking film debut Greta Garbo in a publicity image for "Anna Christie".jpg
Greta Garbo in her talking film debut

Anna Christie is a 1930 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer pre-Code film adaptation of the 1921 play of the same name by Eugene O'Neill. It was adapted by Frances Marion, produced and directed by Clarence Brown with Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg as co-producers. The cinematography was by William H. Daniels, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and the costume design by Adrian.

Contents

The film stars Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, George F. Marion, and Marie Dressler. It was marketed using the slogan "Garbo Talks!", as it was her first talkie film. Of all its stars, Garbo was the one that MGM kept out of talking films the longest for fear that one of their bigger stars, like so many others, would not succeed in them. Her famous first line is: "Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby!" [2]

In fact, Garbo's English was so good by the time she appeared in this film, she had to add an accent in several retakes to sound more like the Swedish Anna. [3] In addition to the English and German-language version of this film, a silent version with titles was also made. [4] George F. Marion performed the role of Anna's father in the original Broadway production and in both the 1923 and 1930 film adaptations.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Actress (Greta Garbo) and Best Cinematography. [5]

Plot

Chris Christofferson (George F. Marion), the alcoholic skipper of a coal barge in New York, receives a letter from his estranged twenty-year-old daughter Anna "Christie" Christofferson (Greta Garbo), telling him that she'll be leaving Minnesota to stay with him. Chris left Anna to be raised by relatives on a St. Paul farm 15 years before, and hasn't seen her since.

Anna arrives an emotionally wounded woman with a dishonorable, hidden past: she has worked in a brothel for two years. One night, Chris rescues Matt (Charles Bickford) and two other displaced sailors from the sea. Anna and Matt soon fall in love and Anna has the best days of her life. But when Matt proposes to her, she is reluctant and haunted by her recent past. Matt insists and compels Anna to tell him the truth. She opens her heart to Matt and her father, disclosing her dark secrets.

Cast

Academy Award nominations

Anna Christie was one of highest-grossing films of 1930 and received the following Academy Award nominations: [6]

German-language version

In the early years of sound films, Hollywood studios produced foreign-language versions of some of their films using the same sets and sometimes the same costumes. Native speakers of the language usually replaced some or all of the original cast. While many of those versions no longer exist, the German-language version of Anna Christie survives. Directed by Jacques Feyder and filmed at MGM in July and August 1930 (the English-language version had been filmed in October and November 1929), [7] it also stars Garbo as Anna, but with Theo Shall, Hans Junkermann and Salka Viertel playing Matt, Chris and Marthy. Garbo's famous first line became "Whisky – aber nicht zu knapp!" ("Whiskey, but not too short"). The English and German-language versions grossed a combined total of $1,499,000. Both versions are available on a double-sided DVD released in the US in 2005, but the German version is sourced from an inferior subtitled print; a much better print without subtitles exists. [8]

Reception

Garbo and Marie Dressler in Anna Christie Anna-Christie-Garbo-Dressler.jpg
Garbo and Marie Dressler in Anna Christie

The film grossed $1,499,000, it made $1,013,000 in the United States and Canada and $486,000 elsewhere, with a profit of $576,000. [1]

Reviews from critics were also positive. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times remarked that Garbo was "even more interesting through being heard than she was in her mute portrayals. She reveals no nervousness before the microphone and her careful interpretation of Anna can scarcely be disputed." [9] Variety reported that it was "in all departments a wow picture" and "another marker along the line of cinematic progress." [10] Film Daily called it "a wow for sophisticated audiences" and wrote that Garbo's performance was "superb". [11] Although John Mosher of The New Yorker thought it "implausible that a woman so markedly beautiful should have such an extraordinarily difficult time", he called Garbo's performance "effective" and wrote that Bickford and Marion were "both excellent", concluding that it was "a picture of his play that Eugene O'Neill, I should think, would approve." [12]

Contemporaneous reviews also expressed surprise at the low pitch of Garbo's voice. Hall wrote that "although the low-toned voice is not what is expected from the alluring actress, one becomes accustomed to it, for it is a voice undeniably suited to the unfortunate Anna." [9] Variety said that "La Garbo's accent is nicely edged with a Norse "yah", but once the ear gets the pitch it's okay and the spectator is under the spell of her performance." [10] Mosher called it "a boy's voice, really, rather flat, rather toneless, yet growing more attractive as the picture advances and you become somewhat accustomed to it." [12]

In 1962, film historian Richard Schickel reviewed the film negatively, describing it as "dull", with Marie Dressler providing "the only vitality in an otherwise static and ludicrous" film. [13]

Garbo's opening line was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.

Home media

Though the English-language version of Anna Christie has been released numerous times worldwide on DVD, the German version is only available on a subtitled US DVD. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Grand Hotel</i> (1932 film) Adaptation of William Drake play

Grand Hotel is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The screenplay by William A. Drake is based on the 1930 play by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum. To date, it is the only film to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated in any other category.

<i>The Hollywood Revue</i> 1929 film

The Hollywood Revue of 1929, or simply The Hollywood Revue, is a 1929 American pre-Code musical comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was the studio's second feature-length musical, and one of their earliest sound films. Produced by Harry Rapf and Irving Thalberg and directed by Charles Reisner, it features nearly all of MGM's stars in a two-hour revue that includes three segments in Technicolor. The masters of ceremonies are Conrad Nagel and Jack Benny.

<i>Ninotchka</i> 1939 film by Ernst Lubitsch

Ninotchka is a 1939 American romantic comedy film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, based on a story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka marked the first comedy role for Garbo, and her penultimate film; she received her third and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1990, Ninotchka was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2011, Time also included the film on the magazine's list of "All-Time 100 Movies".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greta Garbo</span> Swedish-American actress (1905–1990)

Greta Garbo was a Swedish-American actress and a premier star during Hollywood's silent and early golden eras. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time, she was known for her melancholic and somber screen persona, her film portrayals of tragic characters, and her subtle and understated performances. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on its list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

<i>Anna Christie</i> 1921 play by Eugene ONeill

Anna Christie is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. It made its Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921. O'Neill received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this work. According to historian Paul Avrich, the original of Anna Christie was Christine Ell, an anarchist cook in Greenwich Village, who was the lover of Edward Mylius, a Belgian-born radical living in England who libeled the British king George V.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Dressler</span> Canadian-American actress (1868–1934)

Leila Marie Koerber, known by her stage name Marie Dressler, was a Canadian-born stage and screen actress and comedian, who was popular in Hollywood in early silent and Depression-era film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Bickford</span> American actor (1891–1967)

Charles Ambrose Bickford was an American actor known for supporting roles. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Song of Bernadette (1943), The Farmer's Daughter (1947) and Johnny Belinda (1948). His other roles include Whirlpool (1950), A Star Is Born (1954) and The Big Country (1958).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Daniels (cinematographer)</span> American cinematographer

William H. Daniels ASC was a film cinematographer who was best-known as actress Greta Garbo's personal lensman. Daniels served as the cinematographer on all but three of Garbo's films during her tenure at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including Torrent (1926), The Mysterious Lady (1928), The Kiss (1929), Anna Christie (1930), Grand Hotel (1932), Queen Christina (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), Camille (1936) and Ninotchka (1939). Early in his career, Daniels worked regularly with director Erich von Stroheim, providing cinematography for such films as The Devil's Pass Key (1920) and Greed (1924). Daniels went on to win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on The Naked City (1948).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salka Viertel</span> Austrian-American actress and screenwriter (1899–1978)

Salka Viertel was an Austrian actress and Hollywood screenwriter. While under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937, Viertel co-wrote the scripts for many movies, particularly those starring her close friend Greta Garbo, including Queen Christina (1933) and Anna Karenina (1935). She also played opposite Garbo in MGM's German-language version of Anna Christie (1930). Viertel was known as the "social connector" within the large European émigré community of artists who settled on the West Side of Los Angeles in the 1930s and '40s.

<i>Queen Christina</i> (film) 1933 film by Rouben Mamoulian

Queen Christina is a pre-Code Hollywood biographical film, produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933 by Walter Wanger and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. It stars Swedish-born actress Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in their fourth and last film together.

<i>Flesh and the Devil</i> 1926 film

Flesh and the Devil is an American silent romantic drama film released in 1926 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and stars Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson, and Barbara Kent, directed by Clarence Brown, and based on the novel The Undying Past by Hermann Sudermann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Harriet Louise</span> American photographer

Ruth Harriet Louise was an American photographer. She was the first woman photographer active in Hollywood, and she ran Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's portrait studio from 1925 to 1930.

<i>Anna Karenina</i> (1935 film) 1935 film by Clarence Brown

Anna Karenina is a 1935 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation of the 1877 novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and directed by Clarence Brown. The film stars Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone, and Maureen O'Sullivan. There are several other film adaptations of the novel.

<i>Two-Faced Woman</i> 1941 film by George Cukor, Andrew Marton

Two-Faced Woman is a 1941 American romantic comedy film directed by George Cukor and starring Greta Garbo in her final film role, Melvyn Douglas, Constance Bennett, and Roland Young. The movie was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

<i>Anna Christie</i> (1923 film) 1923 film

Anna Christie is a 1923 American silent drama film based on the 1921 play by Eugene O'Neill and starring Blanche Sweet and William Russell.

<i>Anna Christie</i> (1930 German-language film) 1930 film

Anna Christie is a 1930 German-language film adapted from the 1921 Eugene O'Neill play of the same title and filmed following the release of the English-language original version of the same adaptation earlier the same year. Both versions feature leading actress Greta Garbo. In the early years of sound films, Hollywood studios produced foreign-language versions of some of their films using the same sets and sometimes the same costumes, with native speakers of the language usually replacing some or all of the original cast. The German-language version of Anna Christie is one of the few that survives.

Anna Christie is a 1921 play by Eugene O'Neill.

<i>Love</i> (1927 American film) 1927 film by Edmund Goulding

Love is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A sound version of the film was released in 1928 with a synchronized musical score with sound effects. MGM made the film to capitalize on its winning romantic team of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert who had starred in the 1926 blockbuster Flesh and the Devil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George F. Marion</span> American actor (1860–1945)

George Francis Marion Sr. was an American film and stage actor and director, known for Anna Christie, both (1923) and (1930), and Death from a Distance (1935). Marion acted in 35 films between 1915 and 1935.

<i>The Girl Said No</i> (1930 film) 1930 film by Sam Wood

The Girl Said No is a 1930 pre-Code American romantic comedy film starring William Haines and Leila Hyams. In the film, a young college graduate goes to extreme lengths to win the girl he loves.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Anna Christie".
  2. ↑ Háy, Peter (1991). MGM: When the Lion Roars. Atlanta: Turner Publishing. p.  68. ISBN   1-878685-04-X.
  3. ↑ Hay, p. 72
  4. ↑ Alan Gevinson (October 1, 1997). American Film Institute catalog. University of California Press. pp. 37–. ISBN   978-0-520-20964-0 . Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  5. ↑ "The 3rd Academy Awards (1930) Nominees and Winners". Oscars.org (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). Archived from the original on November 13, 2014. Retrieved May 21, 2019.
  6. ↑ Osborne, Robert (1994). 65 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards . London: Abbeville Press. p.  25. ISBN   1-55859-715-8.
  7. ↑ Vieira, Mark A. (2005). Greta Garbo: a cinematic legacy. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. See pps. 107-109 and p. 117 re production dates.
  8. ↑ A brief clip from a superior print with no subtitles can be seen at 0:52:37 in the TCM Garbo documentary included in the 2005 Garbo centennial DVD box set.
  9. 1 2 Hall, Mordaunt (March 15, 1930). "THE SCREEN; Miss Garbo's First Talker". The New York Times . Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  10. 1 2 "Anna Christie". Variety : 34. March 19, 1930.
  11. ↑ "Greta Garbo in "Anna Christie"". Film Daily : 12. February 9, 1930.
  12. 1 2 Mosher, John (March 22, 1930). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker . pp. 60–61.
  13. ↑ Schickel, Richard (1962). The Stars . New York City: Bonanza Books. p.  134. ISBN   9780517037713.
  14. ↑ "Multiple-Language Version Film Collectors' Guide". Brenton Film. July 21, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.