"As shocking as seeing your grandmother drunk!" I believe Louis B. Mayer said about this film. Certainly, after performances as Anna Christie, Mata Hari, Anna Karenina and the lady of the Camillas, Garbo's reputation made her the Eleanor Duse of the silver screen. But after success in the subtle comedy "Ninotchka", Garbo was ready for something quite different, and proves that, just like Meryl Streep did after her series of accent laden weepers, that she could be really funny! Unlike Streep who turned to song in a few films, Garbo dances, and quite delightfully in the "Chica Choca", a dance she makes up quite by accident, getting her evening gown stuck in her shoe to the orchestra leader's delight.
The basic storyline surrounds ski instructor Garbo who spends six months teaching people how to ski and the rest of the year waiting for it to snow. When New Yorker Melvyn Douglas comes to her resort for a vacation, she rescues him after a bad fall, and they are impulsively married. But his business takes him away from her the morning after, and Garbo decides to see if he truly loves her as she is by posing as her more scandalous sister. Not much in the way of reality, but still delightful and witty, a reverse of the same director George Cukor's other 1941 classic, Joan Crawford's "A Woman's Face".
It is Constance Bennett who steals the scene as the temperamental near-sighted stage star as Douglas's jilted flame who has temper tantrums like other people say good morning to their co-workers. Walking into a ladies room with a very sophisticated gait then screaming into a mirror, politely warning Garbo to keep her paws off of Douglas (not for the supposed twin's sake, but for her own) or just squinting at something, Bennett is hysterically funny. It is roles like this that today get Oscar Nominations but back in the 40's, got lost in translation.
Roland Young and Ruth Gordon are fine as Douglas's business associates, Young determined to keep Douglas and Garbo apart, and Gordon aware of Garbo's ruse and in favor of it. Those looking for a hint of Gordon's future wacky old ladies are going to be disappointed; She's pretty normal in this one. Beautiful winter photography and some great New York art deco scenery make for a glamorous if not unique film in MGM's cannon of sometimes sitcomish romantic comedies that they were giving to the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy and would finally perfect with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
The basic storyline surrounds ski instructor Garbo who spends six months teaching people how to ski and the rest of the year waiting for it to snow. When New Yorker Melvyn Douglas comes to her resort for a vacation, she rescues him after a bad fall, and they are impulsively married. But his business takes him away from her the morning after, and Garbo decides to see if he truly loves her as she is by posing as her more scandalous sister. Not much in the way of reality, but still delightful and witty, a reverse of the same director George Cukor's other 1941 classic, Joan Crawford's "A Woman's Face".
It is Constance Bennett who steals the scene as the temperamental near-sighted stage star as Douglas's jilted flame who has temper tantrums like other people say good morning to their co-workers. Walking into a ladies room with a very sophisticated gait then screaming into a mirror, politely warning Garbo to keep her paws off of Douglas (not for the supposed twin's sake, but for her own) or just squinting at something, Bennett is hysterically funny. It is roles like this that today get Oscar Nominations but back in the 40's, got lost in translation.
Roland Young and Ruth Gordon are fine as Douglas's business associates, Young determined to keep Douglas and Garbo apart, and Gordon aware of Garbo's ruse and in favor of it. Those looking for a hint of Gordon's future wacky old ladies are going to be disappointed; She's pretty normal in this one. Beautiful winter photography and some great New York art deco scenery make for a glamorous if not unique film in MGM's cannon of sometimes sitcomish romantic comedies that they were giving to the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy and would finally perfect with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.