Camille (1936)
Directed by George Cukor

Film Review

One of the highest ranking and best loved romantic dramas in cinema history, Camille demonstrates the dizzy artistic heights that Hollywood production teams can rise to when everything goes right.  Under George Cukor's masterful direction, the legendary Greta Garbo delivers what many regard as her finest performance, a heart-rending and immensely subtle portrayal of a complex Parisian courtesan who lives for pleasure and dies for love.

Garbo's tour de force performance is beautifully complemented by a talented supporting cast, which includes a young and handsome Robert Taylor, Henry Daniell in his most substantial film role and Laura Hope Crews as the ageing strumpet whose cheap vulgarity accentuates the refinement and emotional warmth of Garbo's character.

With its supremely elegant composition, glamorous design and exquisite performances, this film is by far the best screen adaptation of the celebrated novel and play La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils.  It is this literary work which forms the basis for Verdi's famous opera La Traviata, music from which makes it into the film's intensely evocative score.  Camille is one of those perfectly crafted pieces of cinema which can genuinely be described as timeless.

Film Synopsis

Despite her humble origins, Marguerite Gautier becomes one of the belles of high society Paris, thanks to the extraordinary power she has over men who are more than willing to pay for her favours.  In the mid-1800s, she leads a lavish and dissolute life, at the expense of her wealthy patron, the Baron de Varville.  Marguerite repays the baron's generosity by falling mad in love with Armand Duval, a younger man who has no fortune of his own.  For a while, Marguerite and her young lover share the perfect romance, the former willing to turn her back on the baron and her life of luxury just to be with the man she now truly loves.  But, fearing for his son's future reputation, Armand's father implores Marguerite to give him up.  Knowing that her past conduct may well bring ruin to Armand, Marguerite finds she has no choice but to reject the only man she has lost her heart to.  Unable to bear the pain of separation, Armand continues pursuing Marguerite as she succumbs to a life-threatening attack of tuberculosis...