Well, I think I've finally come out of my "modern French" period and have well and truly circled back round into a classic hollywood mood. A lot of really old stuff has been put on youtube so I've been raiding that recently. I thought I would never get to see the Garbo version of The Painted Veil and I still haven't seen it all, but someone has put up the first hour or so (which is about 2/3rds to 3/4ers of the film) on youtube and already I'm loving Greta's performance. Herbert Marshall seems to be Mr. Somerset Maugham (he's in other adaptations and later played the role of Maugham very memorably in The Razor's Edge) and he's giving fine support. It's similar in story to the Naomi Watts version but the boredom and frustration and revenge are all very different in tone. I really hope the guy puts up the final 2 or 3 parts of the film though, I was really enjoying it, it's a great screenplay, very quotable and Garbo is just divine.
I also caught a silent version of Anna Karenina (which she later did again in a very different adaptation in the 1930s with sound) she did called Love. Now legend has it this film was only titled such so it could be promoted with the real life couple as "Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Love" - how cheesy, but it seems it *was* sold as Anna Karenina everywhere else. It bears almost no relation to the novel (there's one scene in the opening 40 minutes taken from the novel and even that's out of context) but I actually like that it's not titled that because it isn't that story.
Garbo is frankly marvellous and I wish she'd have been this good in the "proper" adaptation she did later, there's only one scene where she goes over the top (but one must remember it's a silent film, but still...) the rest is utter perfection. Gilbert is fine too and amusingly charming, the end is cheesy (apparantly there was a happy end for "Love" for the Americans and a sad one for "Anna Karenina" for everyone else), but I don't see how the normal end would work as all the meaning is stripped out of it by having the end of the book when you've not had any of the story before that. Still though, probably because it's so tenuous an "adaptation" (it's not an adaptation at all) I thought it worked in its own right, the acting really gives the film a massive boost and it's very well made. Saw this on youtube too, I'd recommend it.
Final one of the three was The Kiss, which bears more than a passing resemblance to The Letter (Somerset Maugham again) but I only got to see the hour long TCM cut rather than the original which was half as long again. This could be better, I think the longer version probably has better characterisation and explains motivations in more detail which would improve the film. It's more than fine as it is though, Garbo is good and all the men fall over her as you'd expect. This was her final silent film and in fact MGM's final silent film (it was the end of the 20s) and while it's not her finest hour in a silent movie there are moments which show you why she was the star she was.
So, on to the foreigns, both of which are dictionary definitions of why I have decided to download certain films (complete unavailability here). First was Un homme et une femme which by all accounts was a box office smash and won its star Anouk Aimée a BAFTA a Golden Globe as well as an oscar nomination (the latter where the film won best foreign language film). The movie is very stylish, lots of lovely swaps between colour and black & white, nice use of flashback visually rather than spelling it out in conversation as well. Good chemistry between the leads and a very well made film, easy to see why it appealed so broadly.
Finally a movie I downloaded because I thought I had found subtitles but after I downloaded it I discovered I couldn't find any in *English*. I've wanted to see The Emigrants for years and so I decided to watch it anyway without subs. I've done this once before (A Special Day, with Sophia Loren and that worked out fine) and I got hold of a couple of reviews with extensive plot summaries and I got on fine as it's a very visual film. I can easily see why this got a Best Picture nomination at the oscars, especially in such a weak year as 1971. Liv is her usual brilliantly natural self, she really comes into her own in the second half of the film. It's beautifully shot and very well made and I would very much like to see it properly one day as I'm sure I could be blown away by it, but for now I just think it's very good and I admire lots about it.