Mata Hari
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Movie Reviews of Mata Hari
Movie Review: "A spy in love is a tool that has outlived its usefulness"
Summary: 4 Stars
Garbo spoke in 1930's "Anna Christie"....but no-one was prepared for the frenzy that would be unleashed the following year, when she took on the exotic character of MATA HARI. As the notorious WW1 lady spy, Garbo romances a sorely-miscast Ramon Novarro (more about him later) and slithers her way across the screen in a dance sequence that almost ended up on the cutting-room floor.
Garbo enchants as Mata Hari, the sensation of the Paris nightclub set, and also a powerful weapon in Europe's spy ring. She knows her job all-too-well, and carefully manouvers herself around the tricky subject of love...which could prove her undoing when she meets young Russian airman Lt. Alexis Rosanoff (Ramon Novarro). Spies don't have room in their lives for such bothersome things as lovers, and, as Mata realises thanks to some wise words from her superior Andriani (Lewis Stone), "the only way to resign from our profession is to die". As Mata's affair spins wildly out of control and her interest in spying reaches carelessless, will she wind up in front of the firing squad?
Greta Garbo alone is why 1931's MATA HARI is still such a devilish good time. She's wildly campy (and doesn't take herself too seriously) in the dance sequence; whilst the scenes with Novarro are handled very professionally. Ramon Novarro does seem hopelessly miscast as the Russian airman. He's very awkward in his love scenes with Garbo (which are written in a style that's much too sentimental to begin with), and he doesn't seem to carry much in the way of a true feeling for the part. Karen Morley has a fascinating supporting role as a fellow female spy; and Lionel Barrymore plays another of Mata's government supporters.
There was almost a case of the "Battling Mata's", when Paramount discovered MGM's plans to showcase Garbo as the lady spy. They quickly rushed into release the Marlene Dietrich picture "Dishonored", in which Dietrich starred as a Mata Hari-esque spy who too becomes unraveled by love. Just like Garbo, Dietrich had to cope with an ungainly, dead-weight leading man (Victor McLaglen), but in many aspects "Dishonored" is the superior film of the two.
The DVD of MATA HARI is bare-bones except for the trailer.
Movie Review: Visually Pretty but Shallow
Summary: 3 Stars
Mata Hari, whose name translated loosely as "Eye of the Morning," was an eastern princess who had been immersed in dance from the moment of her birth--or so she said. In actual fact, she was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, born to a respectable family in Leeuwarden, Holland. In 1895, with the family fortune in decline, she married Rudolf John MacLeod and with him moved to Java. The marriage was horrendously unsuccessful and the couple separated in 1903, when she returned to Europe. After a stint as everything from an artist model to a circus horseback rider, Margaretha reinvented herself through a name change, skimpy costumes, and fairly lacivious dances. Critics regarded her as a lousy dancer, but the public loved her, and she would continue her career as both dancer and courtesan for the next fourteen years, passing between lovers as freely as she passed between the theatres of Europe. During World War I, however, the combination of Mata Hari's lovers and her touring schedule brought charges of espionage. Accused passing information to Germany that caused the deaths of some fifty thousand French soliders, she was found guilty and executed by firing squad in 1917 at age 41. Much argument concerning her guilt or innocence continues to this day.
But you won't really learn much of this from the 1931 MGM film MATA HARI. The Dutch Mata Hari is played by Swedish star Greta Garbo. Mata Hari and Garbo have precisely one trait in common: neither can dance worth a damn. Where Garbo is concerned the film tries to conceal this by a mixture of costuming and "artistic" cinematography that avoids showing Garbo's legendarily large feet and works to dodge the more obvious edges of her lack of dance talent. But Garbo is hardly the only performer who is miscast. Her young Russian lover is played by Mexican actor Ramon Novarro. Her older Russian lover is played by Lionel Barrymore and her German handler by Lewis Stone, both of them very distinctly American, and her French nemisis by C. Henry Gordon--who isn't quite as badly cast, for although American he doesn't scream it.
Given all this, it is startling that the film works as well as it does. There are many exceptions, but MGM seemed to feel it was not necessary to be greatly painstaking where Garbo's films were concerned: she was such a great star that she could survive anything, no matter how commonplace. As such she is frequently the only good thing in the film, often let down by so-so co-stars, silly scripts, and mediocre production values. But this isn't quite the case with MATA HARI. Yes, the casting is odd, but everyone involved was a noted and meticulously professional performer; yes, the script is silly, but it has a consistent internal logic. The cinematography is excellent and Garbo is near the height of her physical beauty--and if the movie tends to treat her as a clothes horse, at least the clothes in question are entertaining in their obvious exoticism. All this said, while the film is extremely hot-house artificial, it does seem to capture something of Mata Hari. Not the facts, of course; those were expendable. But the glamour of the legend, the myth of the glamourous spy who seduced men, betrayed them, destroyed them, using her beauty as a the ultimate secret agent weapon. It is a prototype that would be repeated endlessly right up to present day: Hitchcock's films aside, female spies are almost always presented as beautiful young women of wanton disposition.
Interestingly, Garbo herself may have gone on to become a spy for the Allies during World War II. Noel Coward, who did the same, noted that while Garbo had a reputation for almost pathological reclusiveness before and after the war, during the war itself she was at every embassy cocktail party imaginable, chit-chatting with everyone--and since she was Garbo, the great artiste, many sought to impress her by telling her virtually everything they knew. The word in Coward's circle was that she had agreed to use her celebrity to meet specific persons of interest, talk to them, and pick up loose information that might be of use to the Allies. It was a ploy that Coward was uniquely positioned to recognize: he often did much the same.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Movie Review: Typical Garbo elevating a mediocre film
Summary: 2 Stars
In spite of the spectacular costumes and lighting, this is one of Garbo's duds in which her shining talent rose far above her surroundings. MGM's early talkie version of the Mata Hari legend, the exotic French spy, is weighed down by a verbose, corny and at times confusing script, an inadequate co-star and that leaden atmosphere which was an MGM trademark and dates so many of their dramas.
The print is unrestored but in better condition than other Garbo DVDs. There, are however, some noticeable jumps in continuity which could be scenes missing from the print. There are no extras except a trailer. Unless the DVD is purchased as part of one of the Garbo collections, it is poor value.
Movie Review: TRULY THE WORST GARBO FILM EVER...
Summary: 1 Stars
Pauvre Greta...
She is radiant in this disaster of a film; primarily because her love interest is Ramon Navarro - a gay Spanish actor, playing a straight Russian prince. It is very sad, laughable casting - like a gay Ricky Ricardo pretending he is a...I can't think of a Russian, straight counterpart to Clark Gable.
Garbo tries hard. Barrymore tries harder. Adrian tries the hardest. To no avail. AVOID this film at all cost. An interesting plot line, filmed with calamitous results.
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