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DVD : Queen Christina

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starring: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elizabeth Young
directed by: Rouben Mamoulian

 : Queen Christina

List Price: $19.98
Amazon.com's Price: $17.99
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 9781419807558
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 1419807552
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 06, 2005
Running Time: 97 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1933
Sales Rank: 58730
MPN: D67387D




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Editorial Review:

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.

Amazon.com essential video:
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



Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 4 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. Historically, it's not at all accurate but if you are more interestd in Hollywood glamour than reality, then this shouldn't bother you.

John Gilbert really does look awful, and it's very hard to imagine that anyone would fall instantly in love with him. But then it's even more difficult to believe that Garbo as Christina, dressed ... Read More



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Maybe Garbo's best
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. "Queen Christina" is one of the handful of films which rise to her level.

The films tells of the abdication of Christina of Sweden when she fell in love with a Spanish nobleman. The film starts slowly and not very well establishing Christina's persona as a peace maker surrounded by a court of ambitious war mongers. When it shifts into romance and the ... Read More



Rating: 5 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. She is not only ravishing, but her persona is tailor-made for the strong, mannish role of Christina. Former fiancé Gilbert is also fine as Antonio, which places the subsequent demise of this actor's career squarely at the feet of studio boss L.B. Mayer, who didn't like him. Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, and C. Aubrey Smith lend skilled support in this, one of the screen's crowning early ... Read More



Rating: 3 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. The story involves the Queen of Sweden (Garbo) who rules over a people that are not too bright and advisors that are constantly clamoring for war. Early on Christina calls off the war in the name of the peasants which leaves the warmongers frothing at the mouth. Decisions like this serve to make her character more likeable and little else as the political ... Read More



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Garbo's Gift to Us
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" ... Read More

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