Garbo retired from the screen long before I was going to movies so I've had to catch up with her piecemeal; Two-Faced Woman, for example, never seems to surface whilst Ninotchka is ubiquitous. Recently I acquired a boxed set which I'm working my way through and via which I have just watched Queen Christina. This definitely belongs in the category known as 'they don't make 'em like that anymore' and in this case the cliché describes both the film itself and Greta Garbo who remains luminous some 80 odd years on. People like Lewis Stone, C. Aubrey Smith and Akim Tamiroff, fine actors though they are to a man, simply don't exist in Garbo's world which is ironic as Akim Tamiroff is always spoken of as someone 'the camera loves'. I have no idea how much, if any, of the story is historically factual and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn when Garbo is available to beguile and enchant.
Review of Queen Christina
