Wild orchids

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Movie
German title Wild orchids
Original title Wild orchids
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1929
length 102 minutes
Rod
Director Sidney Franklin
script Hanns Kraly
production Irving Thalberg for MGM
camera William H. Daniels
cut Conrad A. Annoying
occupation

Wild Orchids (OT: Wild Orchids ) is an American feature film directed by Sidney Franklin with Greta Garbo and Nils Asther in the leading roles. It was brought into national distribution on March 30, 1929.

action

Lillie is married to the avaricious John Sterling. They both sleep in separate beds, and John is mostly distant from his young wife. On a ship passage they get to know the Javanese prince de Gace. Lillie is both sexually attracted and humanly repelled by the prince, who has his servants whipped and yet at the same time has perfect manners.

The prince woos Lillie fiercely on Java, and she almost becomes weak during a tiger hunt. But in the end she stays with her husband.

background

During her, artistically mostly disappointing, silent film career , MGM built Greta Garbo into an actress of exotic women who suffer for and from love. With the advent of talkies, there was a growing uncertainty about how the career of Greta Garbo, who spoke English with an accent, would develop. As with all of the studio's top stars, MGM took its time to find the right vehicle for a speech film debut. So the studio was spared the fate of competitor Paramount , who in 1928/29 had to replace almost their entire star inventory and fill them up with new faces.

While Garbo was taking targeted language lessons, the studio continued to produce films with her that were more or less variations on her well-known hits. In Wild Orchids , Garbo played the faithful wife and not a vamp for the first time. However, she was married for the first, but not the last time, to an obnoxious husband who had a platonic friendship with her, but not a marriage built on passion. The film does not always have the necessary dramaturgy to make the three-person play really engaging entertainment.

During the filming, Garbo learned of the death of her mentor Mauritz Stiller . She collapsed and it is said that Louis B. Mayer forbade her to return to Sweden for the funeral. Garbo, already a rather phlegmatic actress, is even more passive than usual in Wilde Orchideen . Some biographers want to explain this with the grief for Stiller. The director said the filming was far from enjoyable as Garbo hated the studio for the cold-heartedness it had treated Stiller a few years earlier. Regardless, the film presented Garbo in some unusual exotic costumes that are more reminiscent of Thailand than Java. A few years later Greta Garbo was traveling in the Far East again, in 1934 in The Colorful Veil , which showed her as the bored wife of a doctor.

The film should initially be called Heat , but the announcement Garbo in "Heat" , which means something like the ardent Garbo , would have led to misunderstandings. Garbo and Asther immediately turned Invisible Shackles .

Theatrical release

With a production cost of $ 322,000, it was roughly the average cost of a Garbo film. It was successful at the box office, grossing $ 622,000 in the US and an additional $ 543,000 in overseas markets. A total of $ 1,165,000 resulted in a profit of $ 380,000 for the studio. Against the background of the talkie craze , the storm of audiences on sound films , that was an extremely acceptable result.

Reviews

The critics praised Greta Garbo for her portrayal.

Richard Watts Jr. was gracious in the New York Herald Tribune :

"Miss Garbo is not only an attractive and beautiful woman, but also a very good actress."

Mordaunt Hall confirmed this assessment in the New York Times :

“Miss Garbo plays very pointedly and, as always, effectively. It's not an easy role, but managed to portray the character in a sympathetic manner. "

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ As ever, Miss Garbo is not only an alluring personage and a beautiful woman, but likewise an expert actress.
  2. ↑ Miss Garbo's acting is well-timed and, as usual, effective. It is not an easy role, but she succeeds in imparting to it no small amount of subtlety.