Women in Early American Films: Then Came Garbo
Posted: Tuesday, December 27, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
Over its initial decades the American film industry presented to the public several successive types of ‘screen woman.' The first heroines were the ‘Nell-tied-to-the-railroad-tracks,' sweet, wounded virgins who personified idealistic femininity. Leading ladies such as Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford filled the roles of these innocent, naïve women who fought to maintain their purity and virtue amid the ugliness and cruelty of the world. This type of female character dominated American films from the beginning of the motion picture business into the first half of the "teens."
Next came the vamps. These female leading ladies were passionate and sexy. They titillated the male psyche. They were schemers and ‘morally questionable' seductresses out to victimize the opposite sex. Pola Negri and Theda Bara rose to fame playing that type of character. Though some actresses had long careers in the type-cast, like Negri and Gloria Swanson, by WWI audience interest in the vamps had begun to fade, too.
A different type a screen woman came into prominence with the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. With open-flapped shoes (that gave the ‘flappers' their name), she was energetic and feisty. She was an effervescent working woman who dressed and acted in ‘the new way.' Colleen Moore and Clara Bow, "The It Girl," exemplified American cinema's leading ladies of the early and mid-twenties. However, they, too, quickly grew stale.
None of these ‘types' of female characters were well rounded or had enough psychological depth to hold the interest of, the now international, film audiences for very long. The standard leading ladies rapidly became stereotypical and dull. They seemed like caricatures, not real women. Film makers struggled to come up with a more interesting, three dimensional and complex ‘screen woman' that would intrigue and attract moviegoers
Assistance in reaching the goal came in 1925, when a new federal, voluntary moral code supplanted the film censorship that already existed in 24 of the United States. The National Board of Review was much more liberal than some of the local agencies. Sexually realistic films like Charles Chaplin's A Woman of Paris were readily approved. The more risqué films were accepted by the public and new, less than moral heroes like Adolphe Menjou and John Gilbert emerged. Contemporary actress, Louise Brooks said that the new female image the studios created for the screen was "based on the proposition that practically all women are whores anyway."
Studio producers were anxious to take advantage of the new trend in the industry. However, they realized that they had no appropriate female heroines; ones that had the youth, beauty, depth of personality, and acting style that would make the ‘free love' theme effective. The bubbly Clara Bow certainly wasn't ‘it.' Neither was the darling Lillian Gish. Audiences who had grown familiar with them could never accept them as strong but troubled, scheming "whores." Existing women stars could provide part of what studios wanted from the "new" leading lady, but not all of it. Then, came Garbo.
Garbo: The Newcomer
After he saw Greta Garbo's performance in Mauritz Stiller's The Saga of Gosta Berling, Louis B. Mayer was convinced he'd found a sex symbol that was beyond his or anyone else's imagining. Her face was pure and exuded passion. The emotion she was able to express to the audience, be it joy, pain, love or fear, were deeply moving and erotic. In her eyes and in her face, filmgoers saw thoughts and feelings that could not be written into a script. They could forgive her moral corruption because they could also see into her soul and recognize her suffering. She was a combination of all of the previous ‘types' of screen woman. She was the quintessential seductress/vamp, yet she was also warm, strong and vulnerable. She was exactly what film makers were seeking to revitalize the industry.
Previously, leading ladies worked their way up through the ranks, gradually becoming stars. Garbo was the first who, due to the impression she'd made on "Mister Mayer," as she always called him, having done only two major films, came to Hollywood already a star at age 19. Though many doubted her abilities, she was promoted as MGM's new top screen woman. Aileen Pringle was still angry at Mayer and Garbo sixty years later for the way she was treated by the studio. "He gave Garbo two of my films (her first two Hollywood films, Torrent and The Temptress). They were supposed to be my pictures!" the 93 year old snarled at Garbo biographer, Barry Paris.
Greta Garbo would quickly sweep aside the rest of the film industry's leading ladies and catapult to a level of celebrity and superstardom not seen before or since. Louise Brooks said that, as soon as Garbo's first screen performances were witnessed "no contemporary actress was ever again to be quite happy with herself…. [Garbo's] was such a gigantic shadow that people did not speak of it." Brooks lamented that, if anyone at a Hollywood party was inconsiderate enough to talk about Garbo, "[actresses] would say, ‘Yes, isn't she divine?' and quickly change the subject."
Intensely promoted by MGM, Garbo's first American made film, Torrent opened to packed houses in March of 1926, while La Boheme, featuring two of Hollywood's biggest stars, Lillian Gish and King Vidor, did not. Torrent's screen play was thin and stale. Garbo played a "hussy with redeeming qualities opposite a wimp with none." MGM was delighted with the results, though. Studio executives had skeptically watched the daily progress. They were amazed at what Garbo did with her eyes and with the restraint she applied to her acting. She created something "steamy, soulful and enchanting" out of what could have been a dull role.
Film critics loved Garbo, too. Reviews pointed out her "surprising propensity for looking like Carol Dempster, Norma Talmadge, ZaSu Pits and Gloria Swanson in turn." The New York Herald Tribune pointed out the Swanson similarity when Garbo inanimately puffed on a cigarette and insisted, "I will not come between a man and his mother." An astute critic noted the "cloak of tender irony" with which she over came the inferior material. The movie was a smash hit. The world now agreed with "Mister Mayer." He had found his new leading lady. Once they saw her on the screen no one ever again doubted that the young, naïve, inexperienced Greta Garbo was a movie star.
Garbo: The Star
The Studio rushed to get out another Garbo film (one Ms Pringle claimed was hers, too). They cast her in a similar role in the melodrama, Everyone's Land by Blasco Ibanez, renamed The Temptress for the screen. This time, Garbo's mentor and father figure, Mauritz Stiller was to direct her. But, due to conflicts with the producer and the performers (other than Garbo), and his slow, expensive, Swedish style of production, Stiller was fired after only ten days on the job. Completed by Fred Niblo with oversight by Irving Thalberg, the film was released in the summer of 1926. It too was a smash success.
Before her twenty-first birthday, Greta Garbo was lauded by many as the world's greatest actress. She was promoted as Hollywood's biggest star within a year of arriving there, and after doing only two American films. But, what of Greta Garbo? How does a young girl who does not speak English well, is doubted or despised by all those around her, is deprived of the guidance of her mentor/father and is elevated to the level of an icon respond? Could she be expected to be happy? Could she be expected to be normal?
"Everything over here is so strange and different," she said. "You all hurry so much. Everyone goes on the run….I don't know whether I like it or not." She struggled with the language barrier: "I used to make them laugh with my mistakes. I used to keep still rather than be laughed at." She sadly wrote home: "I live in a dreary hotel in the quietest part [of town]…how happy I shall be to get home…again." Clare Booth Luce described Garbo as "a deer in the body of a woman, living resentfully in the Hollywood zoo." Film historian Alexander Walker said that "Success acted on Garbo like a depressant."
The more successful Garbo became, the more people resented being 'in her shadow,' and the more withdrawn she became. Garbo's art was internal. She shed her Self and became the characters. What was seen on the screen was not Greta. Greta was the shy girl with debilitating stage fright. Greta was the quiet, frightened girl who wanted to be left alone. Garbo was blessed with a gift. Greta Gustafson was cursed and doomed by it.
After Garbo, the roles of women in the movies changed forever. The great actors began to emerge, Davis, Hepburn, Kerr. But, they all stood in Garbo's shadow. They all followed the path she'd blazed, strived to meet the standard she'd set.
Garbo: The Icon
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Interesting subject Jack; one in which you seem well versed. We women,as well as you men, have our icons,trailblazers and standard setters which we look to for successful objectives in every walk of life. Garbo is one of the most prominent in the movie genre, of her century. In my opinion, Meryl Streep wins that position in this one. Time changes as it marches on, and humans change with it- after all- they are the reason it changes :) Enjoyed your article- and your obvious appreciation of "Woman."--Always- EllaThanks for reading and commenting, Ella
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