The Garden of Allah
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Movie Reviews of The Garden of Allah
Movie Review: von Sternberg, movie-doctor for Selznik
Summary: 3 Stars
I own this movie and am proud of it. It's part of my Dietrich collection. Oh, I know this is not one of her best movies, but that wasn't her fault. She jobbed out of Paramount. Selznik wanted her and was willing to pay her price, and she did it. Business is business. Nothing personal.
Why did he want her? Charles Hingam puts it very well in these lines from his MARLENE: "By 1934 Marlene was established as the most glamorous of international stars. In the midst of the Depression, with millions on the bread line, she represented for countless women a wish fulfillment fantasy of unlimited wealth (she was the third highest-paid person in the nation, earning at least $350,000 a year), and of beauty, elegance, and style. Whereas her only serious rival as a female star, Garbo, lived in secrecy, and never dressed up, Marlene flung herself headlong into the public life of a rich woman. Critics poured ecstatic prose over her: the leading British journalist James Agate wrote: "As for Dietrich, she makes reason totter on its throne," and that was typical of journalists' responses in most countries of the world." So, what did Selznik get out of hiring her? Good or guaranteed box-office, not only here in the USA, but all over the world. Glamour was Platinum. What did she get out of it? Megabucks, when an average American family could eat for a week on $10.00. You could buy a Chrysler family sedan for less than $1,000.00.
But, after all, though it cost a lot to mount and shoot, it was a Studio picture. Among the bad things about that was that we forget, now, that all the studios dealt in ethnic, racial, religious and class stereotypes. All the studios had stables of character actors who could be used, interchangeably, as "types." Mischa Auer, Joseph Schildkraut, Peter Lorre; the list of names is long and includes female actors as well. They provided as background, living cartoon stereotypes, heightening versimilitude for the leading actors. The studios were owned and run by middle-european Jews, mostly, and they hired directors like themselves, and actors as well. Though gentile actors of both sexes were more the rule, there were a great many Jewish actors of both sexes who worked under gentile names. And many of these actors trained in the now defunct Jewish Theatre, and learned how to portray "types." Christian themes appeared often in films of the period, but here, we can say that Selznik's idea of Catholicism was risible, at best. However, it wasn't any sillier than most ideas about it on the Hollywood screen.
THE GARDEN OF ALLAH was and is a big movie. It's difficult to say how they put the thing together. From the look of it, and from what I understand of the production -- as it sweltered and sickened in the tent city set up in the dunes outside Yuma, Arizona -- Boleslawsky shot as best he could, in three digit heat, as quickly as he could -- almost certainly following Selznik's prepared script. They put together a rough cut of the rushes and realized immediately that it was a dog. No magic, no romance, no mystery, just a lot of actors in drag saying foolish things in front of too many blue-eyed arab extras. Probably Dietrich laid it on the line. She got von Sternberg to come in and do what he could with the first half of it. And he did. He did a lot of uncredited work, after all for decades. He didn't bother with the opening "churchy" bits, but began with the arrival of the heroine in his familiar Hollywood Algeria. The sets, the lighting, the costumes (to a good degree) and the action were all re-shot. The real beginning of the film is the nightclub scene in the native quarter. It is one of von Sternberg's typical nightclubs, filled with interesting, spontaneous-looking movement; with lighting effects, visual jokes, rows of undulating odalesques doing a slow but sexual Hootchie-Kootchie. And then, with a drumroll and silence, suddenly, slyly, the beauteous, undulating Tilly Loch who dances, and whose dance is the high point of the film. It is so fascinting, so exciting, and so erotic, that we see, but do not notice an arab standing in an alcove, vigorously masturbating. Unfortunately for the picture, Marlene could not be the center of all this delicious tumult. She had to stay in character; a character so different from her true self. She was no religious ninny; they should have gotten Loretta Young for the role. No; Dietrich got her start, remember, as the pretty blonde in a comic nightclub review at a notorious Lesbian bar in Berlin.
Anyway, Von Sternberg, who did the first successful musical, was one of the few directors who understood how to handle crowds of onlookers, performers, performing, musicians and lighting; and, he understood sound very, very well. He knew how to create an hypnotic and dazzling mis-en-scene that made one's blood pump. He did it again for Tilly Loch in her Orizaba number in DUEL IN THE SUN, providing for Selznik, again, the high point of that lengthy but well-meaning pot of canned chili. He did it for Dietrich fist, in MOROCCO, and later in her Cafe scenes in THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN. He even did it for Jane Russel and Gloria Grahame in MACAO. And we all know he did it for Gene Tierny and Oona Munson in THE SHANGHAI GESTURE.
Martin Scorsese is the only living director who has this gift in full flower, as we can see in the nightclub scenes in NEW YORK, NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR. A rarity.
And so, for whatever they paid him, von Sternberg worked his magic for the producer and the star. He kept Dietrich in good light and in costumes she could wear with chic (even echoing himself in the bedroom scene in MOROCCO, where she wears the silk gown and carries a palmetto fan: pure Whistler). Her make-up was faulty in the early shots, and there were no good close-ups until he was able to arrange one of the great closeups of the decade: her wedding day, when she murmurs her vows. That was the Money Shot. Pefect. Flaw-less. Not by today's standards, but perfect, nonethe less. But, by then we've seen half the picture, and we can stop it, rewind and go to bed. After that its just a horse-opera and progressively silly and dumb by turns. Dietrich and Boyer in a howdah?
But, the good thing about viewing good prints of Studio films is that you can learn a great deal from them, if you look very carefully and view the details again and again. And this film is no exception. They spent a good deal of money on it, and it shows. Not only is it entertaining, but it's a textbook demonstration of what to do, and what not to do.
One thing more: Losch is, I believe, a family name associated with Dietrich, and if Tilly was not fairly closely related to Marlene, she was almost certainly a good friend, for it was she who inspired (though I don't know if she is credit with the choreography) the notorious incense, veils and golden legs danse of Dietrich's wartime hit, KISMET. I've watched it countless times, thinking Tilly may have taken the pirouettes in the long shots -- the way Schwartzkopf took the high notes for Flagstadt in TRISTAN -- but I don't think so. Not a parody though. Dietrich wasn't a real dancer, anymore than she could play the violin, but god knows she had "moves" as they say.