Anna Christie (1930)

Directed by Clarence Brown. Starring Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, George F. Marion, Marie Dressler, James T. Mack.

Marketed as the movie in which “Garbo Talks!” and she sure does, with a shaky accent that had been all but lost after years of making silents in Hollywood. She’s the titular Swede, arriving in New York City to stay with her estranged father, a drunken barge skipper played by Marion; soon after, she falls in love with coarse sailor Bickford, but she’s harboring a shameful secret. Because of director Brown’s relentlessly spare, static treatment, Eugene O’Neil’s play never fully comes to life on screen. The star’s grand entrance at a grubby saloon is a treat, but the frail drama settles too soon after that, and the climactic release rings false. Garbo has her moments—far more than her male co-stars—but is upstaged by Dressler in her handful of scenes as papa’s boozing buddy, a role expanded from the original play. A German-language version of the same script directed by Jacques Feyder on the same sets also starred Garbo, but the rest of the cast was replaced with German actors.

63/100