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- Theatrical trailer
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Arguably Greta Garbo's best MGM movie--depending how you feel about Camille and Ninotchka--this tale of the 17th-century Swedish monarch who preferred men's togs to gowns plays the most provocative games with the great star's ambisexual personality. At her request, Rouben Mamoulian directed (all three Garbo's-best-movie candidates were done by the best directors she worked with: Mamoulian, George Cukor, and Ernst Lubitsch). Two sequences are legendary: Christina memorizing the room at a snowbound inn where she has first experienced love; and the long, concluding closeup of a queen become ship's-figurehead--as blank as a tabula rasa, and filled with all the meaning and emotion seven decades of audiences have chosen to see there. Those scenes are anthology pieces, but unlike most Garbo pictures, the whole movie is intelligently scripted and sustained. With Lewis Stone, C. Aubrey Smith, and John Gilbert--Garbo's premier silent-era costar--making a tentative comeback as her love interest. --Richard T. Jameson
Product Description
To escape the burdens of rule, Sweden's Queen Christina rides into the countryside disguised as a boy. There she meets and secretly falls for a dashing Spanish envoy on his way to the royal court. Imagine the envoy's delighted surprise when he and the young "nobleman" must share a bed at an overcrowded inn. Greta Garbo gives a luminous performance in this lavish costume drama, starring with her one-time off-screen fiance John Gilbert and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. "It had been so enchanting to be a woman, not a queen. Just a woman in a man's arms," Christina murmurs to her lover when her true identity is revealed. But she knows her people will not accept her marriage to a foreigner. Torn between her duty and her heart, she must make a fateful decision.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
before i bought this movie i was told that it is nothing but garbo, garbo, garbo, i was not disappointed!
its opening holds back the swedish sphinx for siveral minutes, opening with a beautiful close up of that irresistable furrowed brow. from there is is a tour-de-force for her, her two famous scenes, the touching scene and her final close-up which holds a special place in the hollywood archives.
also i was forewarned about john gilbert, his acting voice-totally miscast. i disagree. i liked him in the part, okay he over acts in places, but hey-he and garbo re create that charismatic chemistry that explodes in "LOve" and "Flesh and the devil", also it made me sad to think this was his last, sadly dying not long afterwards.
i was disappointed in two things which are muffed over by the garbo vehicle, the extras and the music.
somehow i dont think Swedish peasants had a stong clear american tinted voice, such as the opening "I used to be king of Sweden".
The music is brutish in the "touching scene". it gives the lovely sequence an almost comic aspect, best to mute your tv while it is on, garbo needs not say a thing to be heard.
What makes this exciting is that it is the only scene that i see her cry, when Gilbert dies in her arms, she buries her head, raised it with a tint of a tear in each, she leans over him as if to kiss him, instead covers passionately his face with a cover, and proceeds into the greatest final close-up i have ever seen, the scene switching from her walking towards the bow, the sailors shouting as they proceed to sail, her touching the bow, the wind blown sails, and slowly the camera finds those haunting eyes-magnificent!
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
In my view Garbo's greatest film, and her most personal. Among my other favorites are Camille and Ninotchka, but Queen Christina is her stand-out classic above all others. I have read that Garbo was personally exicted by and involved in this production to an extent unparalled for her, motivated by the Swedish (her homeland) history and the opportunity to play one of history's most enigmatic figures, the queen who "abdicated her throne for love" (though this portrayal is, of course, largely "Hollywoodized"--you can probably throw most expectations of historical accuracy out the window, just set back and behold).
Here is every aspect of the legendary Garbo in one film: the breathtakingly beautiful woman, the amibiguous sexuality, the great tragienne, the aloofness, the boyish playfulness, the restless longing to escape any enforced tableaux or expectations of others and live her own life by her own terms, all things she had in common with Queen Christina. Here also is her warm, memorable final pairing with her former real-life amor and frequent co-star John Gilbert.
Two legendary scenes stand out: Garbo walking about, as if in a daze, memorizing the inn room in which she and Gilbert have just spent the night (a scene almost lost due to censors), and of course the final, unforgettable closeup, the greatest closeup in the history of cinema--simply stunning, as is the heartbreaking farewell to the dying Gilbert moments before. Not to be missed scenes also are Garbo running out of the castle into the bitter cold, rubbing snow in her face like a child, and the warm relationship with her elderly attendant, C. Aubrey Smith, who dotes on her like a daughter, combing her hair, tending to her every need with tender love and protectiveness. --One of the overlooked subtexts in the film is the parentless Christina's relationships with two major father figures, Lewis Milestone (another frequent co-star) as a palace official, who vehemently protests Christina's decision to step down from the throne, along with the personal attendant, C. Aubrey Smith, with his benevolent, Mark Twain face, caring for Christina in a motherly fashion, wanting only her happiness, wherever that takes her....
In life Garbo indeed appeared reclusive and aloof, though I suspect she was simply a very shy person who perhaps never fully comprehended what it was we all wanted from her. But here, in Queen Christina, actress and woman merge. Garbo opened up for us in a way she had never before and would never again, fully showing us both her great strength and acute vulnerability, and the result is spellbinding, a treasure forever, Garbo's gift to us all, and we are all the beneficiaries.
Here is every aspect of the legendary Garbo in one film: the breathtakingly beautiful woman, the amibiguous sexuality, the great tragienne, the aloofness, the boyish playfulness, the restless longing to escape any enforced tableaux or expectations of others and live her own life by her own terms, all things she had in common with Queen Christina. Here also is her warm, memorable final pairing with her former real-life amor and frequent co-star John Gilbert.
Two legendary scenes stand out: Garbo walking about, as if in a daze, memorizing the inn room in which she and Gilbert have just spent the night (a scene almost lost due to censors), and of course the final, unforgettable closeup, the greatest closeup in the history of cinema--simply stunning, as is the heartbreaking farewell to the dying Gilbert moments before. Not to be missed scenes also are Garbo running out of the castle into the bitter cold, rubbing snow in her face like a child, and the warm relationship with her elderly attendant, C. Aubrey Smith, who dotes on her like a daughter, combing her hair, tending to her every need with tender love and protectiveness. --One of the overlooked subtexts in the film is the parentless Christina's relationships with two major father figures, Lewis Milestone (another frequent co-star) as a palace official, who vehemently protests Christina's decision to step down from the throne, along with the personal attendant, C. Aubrey Smith, with his benevolent, Mark Twain face, caring for Christina in a motherly fashion, wanting only her happiness, wherever that takes her....
In life Garbo indeed appeared reclusive and aloof, though I suspect she was simply a very shy person who perhaps never fully comprehended what it was we all wanted from her. But here, in Queen Christina, actress and woman merge. Garbo opened up for us in a way she had never before and would never again, fully showing us both her great strength and acute vulnerability, and the result is spellbinding, a treasure forever, Garbo's gift to us all, and we are all the beneficiaries.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By Susan Fong
Format:VHS Tape
The gloriously beautiful and gifted Greta Garbo gives an alternately commanding and comedic performance as Sweden's cross-dressing monarch, Queen Christina. Christina falls in love with a Spanish ambassador, played by Garbo's real-life ex-beau, John Gilbert, and in doing so, changes the course of history.
This film has a dated artificial look to it. The sets LOOK LIKE SETS, and the action often feels stagy and claustrophobic, as if it were conducted on one of MGM's cumbersome sound stages (which it was).
However, "Queen Christina" is worth seeing because of the sheer pleasure that the ever effervescent Garbo generates through her skillful portrayal of the eccentric monarch. Garbo on screen never fails to captivate. She is often better than the movies she appears in.
See "Queen Christina" for the joy and artistry of Garbo's performance. You won't be disappointed.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Glamour!
That's what it offers... glamour! The 1930s, that era of the Great Depression, had glamour figured out. Read more
Published on September 15, 2010 by Giordano Bruno
4.0 out of 5 stars
Garbo Glares
There was a brief time and place when the silent films had faded and talkies had begun, yet the people who survived the transition brought to the screen a sensitivity and level of... Read more
Published on August 26, 2010 by Dr. James Gardner
5.0 out of 5 stars
GARBO AND GILBERT FOR THE LAST TIME
.....The picture got better when pressure was put upon the Queen to send her Latin lover home and to marry a Swede who would give her an heir to the throne. Read more
Published on July 23, 2010 by C. Chandler
4.0 out of 5 stars
KING Christina
Set in the 1600s, Rouben Mamoulian's QUEEN CHRISTINA is considered by many to be Greta Garbo's best film. It is if one accepts this as a total work of fiction, perhaps. Read more
Published on July 7, 2009 by Annie Van Auken
4.0 out of 5 stars
Garbo's most sensitive screen performance
QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933) was the first movie which Greta Garbo made as part of a secret development deal with MGM studios. Read more
Published on May 24, 2009 by Byron Kolln
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Vehicle for Garbo
Garbo is Garbo here, and that's really all that needs to happen. She is splendid and it's worth sitting through this otherwise rather silly film to see her. Read more
Published on January 26, 2008 by R. Swanson
3.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe Garbo's best but print poor
Many of the films of the great Greta Garbo are a trial because so often she was the luminous centre in absurd stories with unworthy costars. Read more
Published on June 22, 2007 by Douglas M
5.0 out of 5 stars
Queen Christina
Mamoulian's film creaks a bit with some broad playing from secondary actors, but Garbo's luminosity more than makes up for it. Read more
Published on June 21, 2007 by John Farr
3.0 out of 5 stars
Heavy Hangs Garbo's Head
As I continued my quest through Greta Garbo's career I came across this film, a big sweeping historical romance that has a pure heart but a very dry tongue. Read more
Published on November 25, 2006 by Chris Roberts
4.0 out of 5 stars
Garbo in her most enigmatic role
An irregular, though in the end, definitely great Garbo vehicle.
It is shocking to note how our impression of a film changes along with the time. Read more
It is shocking to note how our impression of a film changes along with the time. Read more
Published on March 25, 2006 by Quilmiense
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