Anna Christie (1930)
Anna Christie (Greta Garbo) was left by her sailor father on a farm owned by relatives. She fled the cruel family and lived on her own, eventually becoming a prostitute. Disgusted with her life and broke, she goes to her father, Chris (George F. Marion), and lives on his fishing barge. She meets Marthy (Marie Dressier), an old waterfront woman who was her father's mistress. During a storm, they rescue a seaman named Matt Burke (Charles Bickford) from drowning. Anna and Matt fall in love, but Anna's anger at her father for neglecting her for so many years causes her to reveal her past to both her father and Matt. In disgust, Matt leaves. Unable to stop loving Anna and knowing that he has also made mistakes, Matt returns and asks Anna to marry him. She accepts.
Hail the new Garbo! The white flame from Sweden has found her voice! Some of the strange mystery of the woman (you never visualize Garbo as saying words, and it is a breathless sort of shock when she speaks) is gone, but the new Garbo is a greater actress than the old. In her hands the neurotic O'Neill heroine becomes a rare, fascinating creature.
From the moment she enters the back room of the water front bar until she at last makes her compromise with happiness you watch and listen spellbound. Her accent, which is necessary to the characterization, is very slight.
Clarence Brown's direction is faultless. He has stuck to the original script, but has used the scope of the screen to its fullest extent. Pauline Lord played it on the stage, you remember, and Blanche Sweet did it in silent form.
There are no hot love scenes — only one kiss, in fact, and Anna's father is in the room then.
Charles Bickford is the Irish carrot-top. No more perfect type could have been found. Marie Dressier, as the drunken wharf habitue, does the best work of her career. George Marion, who played the father role on the stage, loses none of his greatness.
But it is the talking Garbo that will pack them in. Her characterization is one of the fine, classic gestures of the screen. All Talkie.
Photoplay March 1930
Vintage magazines
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Books with substantial mentioning of Anna Christie
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David Thomson Have you seen?, A personal introduction to 1,000 films New York, 2008 |
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Stanley Hochman (editor) From Quasimodo to Scarlett O'Hara, A National Board of Review Anthology 1920 - 1940 New York, 1982 |
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Michael Conway, Dion McGregor and Mark Ricci The Films of Greta Garbo Secaucus, New Jersey, 1973 |
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Books with an entry on Anna Christie
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Jay Robert Nash, Stanley Ralph Ross The Motion Picture Guide, Volume I A-B 1927-1983 Chicago, 1985 |
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Paul Michael, editor in chief. James Robert Parish, associate editor The American movies reference book, The sound era Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,, 1969 |
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| Alfred Bauer Deutscher Spielfilm Almanach, 1929-1950 Berlin, 1950 |
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