TWO-FACED WOMAN

US, 1941, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Robert Sterling, Ruth Gordon.
Directed by George Cukor.

Greta Garbo's last film. She had made Ninotchka with Melvyn Douglas in the late thirties and it had been a comedy success. It was hoped that the reteaming with comedy flair would again be successful. Critics were very hard on the film and Greta Garbo retired from the screen and never reappeared.

In retrospect the film is quite enjoyable like so many of the frothy comedies of the thirties and early forties. Garbo has quite an enjoyable comic flair, even if the part seems so far-fetched. It is somewhat reminiscent of the later Cactus Flower in which Bergman played a similar kind of role. The film has all the M.G.M. glossy production values, a score by Bronislau Kaper, an interesting performance from the younger Ruth Gordon and it is directed by George Cukor who was the respected director of so many such films and of actresses including Katharine Hepburn. Cukor had directed Garbo as Camille.

1. An enjoyable comedy, a sex comedy with style? The appeal in the thirties and forties? Perennial appeal?

2. The production values, the M.G.M. treatment? The work of director George Cukor?

3. The film as a Greta Garbo vehicle, her presence, her mystique? her particular romantic and comedy style? A serious actress, her comic flair? The end of her career?

4. The film as based on a play: artificial situations, crisp and smart dialogue. the chic world of the wealthy? Its contemporary appeal in the early forties? Now? The risque aspects and their condemnation at the time, now?

5. Greta Garbo's performance as Karin? The ski instructress type, serious and healthy, no vices etc.? her severity with Larry? The humour of their being lost, the quick marriage? The inevitability of clash? Romance and the lack of knowledge of each other? The various fighting sequences? Garbo's transition to the character of Katerine? The excuse for the deception, the risk in carrying it off, the humorous sequences of the woman of the world? her clash with the sophisticated city women, the directress and the ‘bitchiness’? Her boasting of her amoral approach to life. the international courtesan? The humour of her drinking, the improvised dancing? Her fleeing back to the ski lodge, her trying to be both characters with Larry? The two sides of a woman's character and the humour of the title? How strong the characterisation, interesting aspects of woman's temperament, change and image?

6. Larry as a type, his wealth, his wooing of Karin, the marriage and then the realities of their clashes, of business, exercise, personal idiosyncrasies? His absence and the telegrams, his flirting in the city? His suspecting Karin? Playing along with her? His frightening her with a false seduction? (It is said that sequences were added to the film to indicate his knowledge of the deception all along in order to make it less risque. Is this clear?)

7. The portrait of the sophisticated New York woman, her flirtation with Larry, the sequences in the theatre, the restaurant sequences and the bitter clashes and verbal exchanges, receiving her comeuppance from Katherine? The contrast with Miss Ellis as the devoted secretary and helper of Karin? Miller as the associate of Larry, as infatuated with Katherine? The other men and their attentions on Katherine and her response?

8. The comedy routines especially the climax with the skiing down the mountain? The humour of the pretence and such examples as the dance sequence?

9. Themes of romance, love, marriage, deception, fidelity?