the audience applauded

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Blistering performances.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

A masterpiece, Greta at her luminous best. One can't stop being mesmerised by her perfectly chiseled face. The Dumas classic is a perfect vehicle for Garbo.

Yikes. the Hollywood names don't get much bigger than this. Greta Garbo, at 31, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore. and one of my favorites from the oldies.. .Jessie Ralph, who made those films with W.C. Fields. Margeurite (Garbo) meets two men at the opera, Duval (Taylor) and the Baron (Henry Daniell). Duval pursues her, but she is getting more and more ill, and spending all her time with the Baron. Her maid (Jessie Ralph), and her friend (Laura Crews) keep an eye on her in supporting roles. Written by Dumas, it's quite similar to Moulin Rouge, but that was a novel written by Pierre LaMure. Both stories are about a tug of war, where the girl can't decide between the rich Baron and the common guy. Lots of scheming, and talk about the proper thing to do. This one turns into a love story, with some humor and tragedy, sacrifice. again, similar to Moulin Rouge. It's quite good, although quite dated story-line. Lots of old fashioned themes, that would never fly today. But a good story of it's time.Directed by George Cukor, who will get an Oscar for My Fair Lady. Garbo only made a couple more films after this one. Unfortunately, Conquest and Two Faced Woman were both big failures, which is probably why she didn't make more films.

What can you say about a thirty-one year-old woman who died? That she was carefree, gay, romantique? That she danced divinely? And why not -- she was played by the divine Greta Garbo? That she was invented (or refashioned) by the son of the guy who wrote "The Three Musketeers"?That she captured the attention of the meta-handsome Robert Taylor? That Robert Taylor's real name was Spangler Arlington Brugh? That she suffered from one of those diseases that are periodically romanticized? That in the 1960s it might have been schizophrenia but in 1847 Europe it was tuberculosis? That tuberculosis, like pregnancy, was supposed to transfigure a woman's beauty? That it was believed to make her thin, pale, waif-like, alluringly enervated? That Dumas fils book was so successful he dramatized it and Verdi turned it into an opera? That in Charles Jackson's 1944 novel "The Lost Weekend," the protagonist watches this movie and is moved to tears by it? That the author of that novel was bisexual? That the director of this movie was gay? That Truman Capote sneaked into Garbo's New York apartment and reported to The New Yorker that one of her abstract paintings was hanging upside down in the vestibule? That Truman Capote was gay? That Garbo's most devoted fans probably contain a disproportionate number of gay guys? That that last generalization strikes even me, its own author, as a little Olympian? That Greta Garbo always struck me as a little beefy? That here she does a good job of acting casually reckless? That these tragic love stories in which someone -- usually the woman -- dies a death that we don't see as disfiguring are getting a little tiresome? That I'm still struggling to recover from Erich Segal's "Love Story" of 1970? That the first sentence of "Love Story" is, "What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?" That Robert Taylor had about ten years during which he tried to act from a position other than "default," which was snarling, masculine, a little coarse? That in "Westward the Women" he even gets to use a bull whip on a dozen ladies who are pulling his Conestoga for him? The answer to these questions is obvious and clear. I don't know.

The great literary romances of the late nineteenth century, despite perhaps being presumed today to be models of propriety and principle, were more often than not frank tales of adulteresses and prostitutes. When many of these great works were adapted for the screen in the 1930s, the most natural choice for a leading lady was often Greta Garbo, than whom there was none finer at portraying such fallen women as noble and tragic heroines.Garbo was one of the cinema's great natural performers, and in her day was probably the most genuine person to have graced the screen. She brought something to these roles not only because she was dangerously beautiful, but also because she was irresistibly human. Even when her character lied to her lover she could make us sympathise with her motives, as well as understand why the lead man was so enamoured of her to be taken in. In Camille, she brilliantly captures the conflict between Marguerite's strength of character and her physical frailty. Her occasional coughs and lapses into weariness are so neatly understated, but in a way that makes us accept that she is fighting against them rather than that they are insignificant.Whether Garbo's professionalism rubbed off on others, or whether it was the intensely personal direction of George Cukor, Camille also features some superb performances from what could have been a disappointing supporting cast. Lead man Robert Taylor (who once described acting as the easiest job in the world) was generally little more than a handsome but wooden matinée idol, and yet here the youngster pulls off his part like a pro. True, for the first hour of the picture he is simply a handsome, grinning mug, but when his character is required to display some emotional depth he steps up to the task. Henry Daniell and Lionel Barrymore were both shameless hams, but here they are at their most restrained, without losing any of their trademark qualities. When you compare Daniell in Camille to his other performances, it's like seeing the real person that a caricature is based on.While the sincerity of the cast certainly helps to give Camille its emotional intensity, it is the direction of Cukor which gives it its pace and watchability. Cukor's cinema is all about movement, and he has a hundred tricks up his sleeve, each using motion to draw our attention or set tone. Take Garbo's big scene with Barrymore. The two of them are essentially just wheeling around a small room, but Cukor keeps his camera up fairly close, emphasising their almost constant changes in position. This gives an unsettling, desperate quality to the scene, even giving the impression that Barrymore is chasing Garbo. At other times such rapid change would be distracting, especially if the scene contains a lot of important information, but Cukor still uses subtle shifts in perception to keep the narrative feeling fresh and meaningful. For example in the lengthy episode at the opera where we meet the principle characters for the first time, Cukor uses the fuzzy glow of the stage as a backdrop for the first meeting between Garbo and Taylor, and the blandness of the box for the equivalent encounter with Daniell.Both the acting and the direction here are purely cinematic, the former glamorous yet honest, the latter unobtrusively guiding the audience with the moving image. And yet it takes away none of the integrity of Alexander Dumas fils' novel. And so this final nod is to the hidden hand behind the screen - producer Irving Thalberg. Thalberg's aim was never simply to make a fast buck; he wanted to leave high quality product behind him. It seems that pictures like Camille are what he always aspired to - ones that harnessed all the faculties of the medium, yet were as prestigious and culturally significant as any classic play or novel. This was among his last productions, and he died before it was released, but it is undoubtedly a worthy asset to his legacy.