The woman with the two faces

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Movie
German title The woman with the two faces
Original title Two-Faced Woman
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1941
length 94 minutes
Rod
Director George Cukor
script SN Behrman ,
Salka Quarter ,
George Oppenheimer
production Gottfried Reinhardt
for MGM
music Bronislau caper
camera Joseph Ruttenberg
cut George Boemler
occupation

The woman with the two faces (OT: Two-Faced Woman ) is the last film by Greta Garbo . Directed by George Cukor , the actress played the only dual role of her career.

action

The publisher Larry Blake meets the attractive ski instructor Karin Borg during his ski holiday in Sun Valley and falls in love with her. They both get married and Karin follows him to New York. She becomes jealous of Larry's ex-girlfriend Griselda, an actress and scheming lady of better society, whom Karin portrays as a clumsy nature child with no manners. Karin seeks revenge and leaves Larry only to return a short time later as her twin sister Katrin. Katrin is a luxury creature who is taking New York society by storm and tries to seduce Larry as the glamorous vamp. In the end, the misunderstandings clear up and both spouses live happily in Sun Valley.

background

With the outbreak of war, the foreign markets, which so far brought in the majority of the income for films with Greta Garbo, began to collapse. MGM therefore tried to adapt Garbo's image to American taste. The actress was persuaded to appear in a new comedy and chose, of all things, a light tabloid comedy by Ludwig Fulda from the huge pool of scripts at MGM, entitled The Twin Sister, and filming began in early 1941. The studio's publicity department began long before it was distributed Efforts to present a completely new Garbo to the public: a perfect sportswoman, a perfect salon lady, a perfect friend, a perfect lover, in short, the perfect girl next door. Marlene Dietrich , who always analyzed her rival astutely , was appalled that, in her opinion, the original Garbo should be turned into a second-rate Irene Dunne imitation. The changed market value of Garbo was expressed in the lower fee of 150,000 US dollars.

The search for titles took on grotesque forms: Her Wicked Sister , The Gay Twin , Anna and Anita , Naughty but Nice or alternatively Nice but Naughty or Naughty Today, Nice Tomorrow , Her Weekend Sister , The Shadow Wife or even The Ubiquitous Lady were some of the suggestions that were up for discussion. One of the reasons for the failure of the whole undertaking was the massive problems with the censorship, which in the end robbed the story of its only punchline. Under pressure from the Catholic Church, a scene had to be re-shot which clearly shows that Melvyn Douglas sees through his wife's intent to deceive, who wants to seduce him in the form of her alleged twin sister. In this way, according to the studio's official justification, “the institution of marriage should be saved from degradation”.

In some scenes, Garbo is unfavorably lit and looks old and tense compared to other scenes. The idea of ​​showing the rather flat-chested actress with low-cut dresses on the screen was not enough to consolidate her reputation as a glamor queen. The short scene with a bathing suit was also not used to present Garbo in an advantageous image. The actress was irritable throughout the shoot and repeatedly voiced suspicions that the studio wanted to ruin and get rid of her with this film. She was annoyed that Louis B. Mayer had personally vetoed her in the lead role in Madame Curie . In fact, from the end of 1941, some articles were circulating in the trade magazines, according to which MGM wanted to terminate the contracts of Norma Shearer , Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, who had all been with the studio since at least 1925, because the actresses had become too expensive. All three stars ended their MGM careers the following year, partly to retire from the big screen like Shearer and Garbo, while Crawford won the Oscar two years later with Solange a Heart Beats and started a comeback. There is another interesting parallel in this context: Norma Shearer's last film was the comedy Her Cardboard Lover, also directed by George Cukor .

Shortly after filming ended, Gilbert Adrian , head of MGM's costume department, resigned on the grounds that saying goodbye to Garbo would also end his idea of ​​glamor. He personally said goodbye to the actress, who, he describes, said:

“I'm sorry you're leaving. But you know, I actually didn't like most of the clothes you put me in. "

Theatrical release

The film premiered on November 30, 1941. On December 31, 1941 the nationwide rental took place. At $ 1,247,000 to produce, the film was within the scope of an expensive MGM production. Contrary to the many rumors, the film was reasonably successful at the box office and grossed 875,000 US dollars in the US and another 925,000 US dollars abroad. The cumulative grossing of 1,800,000 US dollars resulted in a loss of 62,000 US dollars for the studio.

The film was first shown in German cinemas on September 16, 1948; the television premiere was on October 20, 1973 on ZDF.

Reviews

The contemporary reviews have been devastating, while in recent years a much more positive view of film and star has been cast.

The critic Cecila Ager judged very harshly in the magazine PM :

"The film turns Garbo into a clown, a buffoon, a dancing bear."

The lexicon of international film , on the other hand, finds very friendly words:

“The film was Greta Garbo's most blatant failure and led to her withdrawal from the film business. Free of fixed expectations towards the star, today's viewer sees a not overly elegant, but quite amusing romantic comedy. "

In the film blog Bright Lights Film Journal there is also a positive review, in which Garbo's acting ability to clearly work out the two completely different characters is expressly praised.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Barry Paris in the biography 'Garbo *, page 551
  2. ↑ The picture makes Garbo a clown, a buffoon, a monkey on a stick.
  3. ↑ The woman with the two faces. In: Lexicon of International Films . Filmdienst , accessed on 6 April 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ^ Lesley Chow: The Double Standard: The Twins of Two-Faced Woman and Sylvia Scarlett. In: Bright Lights Film Journal. January 31, 2008, accessed February 22, 2020 .