Anna Christie
by Clarence Brown, Jacques Feyder
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Bickford, George F. Marion, Greta Garbo, James T. Mack, Marie DresslerDirector: Clarence Brown, Jacques Feyder
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Clarence Brown
Producer: Irving Thalberg
Writer: Eugene O'Neill
Writer: Frances Marion
Writer: Frank Reicher
Writer: Walter Hasenclever
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; German (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 174 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Anna Christie
Movie Review: A Great, Underrated Film
Summary: 5 Stars
This remarkably moving film was Greta's talkie debut. It holds up not only as her finest screen performance but as the best film production of a Eugene O'Neill play. The supporting cast is superb, the magnificent Marie Dressler, in particular, delivering a performance for the ages. Director Clarence Brown succeeds in creating a mood of melancholy and muted hope that, along with the fine writing and brilliant acting, makes it one of the classics of American Film making. And yet, through the years, the reputation of this movie has faded because of an odd assembly of inaccurate impressions. Four trends in particular have combined to unfairly diminish the appreciation of this wonderful film. 1. The decline of Eugene O'Neill's reputation. Anna Christie won the Pulizer Prize in 1922. O'Neill was considered to be to playwriting what Hemingway and Faulkner would later become to novels, the American who could stand comparison with Europe's finest. His fall from that position has been precipitous. Today it's common place to hear people comment on how dated his plays are and, more devastatingly, how boring. I'm not going to argue the point on O'Neill generally, but as far as Anna Christie itself goes, I find it involving, meaningful and universal. So if you haven't seen the movie before, leave any O'Neill preconception behind and you'll find that Brown, O'Neill and Garbo can slice your soul in this powerful production. 2. Greta didn't like the movie. According to Mark A. Vieira in his brilliant Greta Garbo: A Cinematic Legacy, her quote to a fellow Swede after she saw the movie was, "Isn't it terrible?! Who ever saw Swedes act like that" Her concern that it was an unflattering portrait of her countrymen troubled her throughout the production. However, it wasn't the responsibility of O'Neill, Brown or Garbo herself to present an idealized picture of Swedes but to tell the truth. And in answer to Greta's question, "Who ever saw Swedes act like that?" let me answer. I have. I'm quite sure Greta's unenthusiastic reaction to the movie has hurt it more and more as her status as infallible icon has grown. 3. Greta liked the German version better. In all do respect, I find that observation absurd. It may be more accessible to German and Scandinavian audiences but it is not better than the English version. English speaking viewers who express this view I feel are being insincere or arty or are simply parroting something Greta said. 4. The bigger than life image of Garbo. In the eight decades since this movie premiered, Greta Garbo has become an international icon of indisputable significance. Her adoring fans look back towards her as an unrivaled symbol of film magic. And so they tend to like the movies where she is bigger than life, magical, iconic. Grand Hotel, Anna Karinina, Camille and the ridiculously overrated Queen Christina have become the movies that they love. They're much more comfortable with Greta playing a ballerina, a member of Russian aristocracy, a Queen or a consort of princes than a down and out, lowlife prostitute. I hear people describing her performance in Anna Christie as "depressing" and "dreary." And yet, in that remarkable first scene in the bar, she most successfully creates a real human being, one we can recognize, understand, love and weep for.
Summary of Anna Christie
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/06/2005 Run time: 175 minutes Rating: NrSimilar DVD Movies
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