The Painted Veil (1934)

A wife neglected by her husband, a medical researcher in China, falls in love with a dashing diplomatic attache.

Director: Richard Boleslawski
Cast: Greta Garbo, Herbert Marshall, George Brent, Warner Oland, Jean Hersholt, Bodil Rosing, Katharine Alexander, Cecilia Parker, Soo Yong, Forrester Harvey, Robert Adair, Mariska Aldrich, Maidena Armstrong, Billy Bevan, Beulah Bondi, Walter Brennan, W.H. Davis, Vernon Dent, Flora Finch, Lawrence Grant, Leyland Hodgson, Otto Hoffman, Jane Keckley, Lillian Leighton, Gus Leonard, Jack 'Tiny' Lipson, Mary MacLaren, Robert McKenzie, Phil Ormsby, Jack Perry



After her sister Olga marries and leaves home, Katrin Koerber, the daughter of an Austrian medical professor, fights loneliness and dreams of a more exciting life outside Austria. Consequently, when Dr. Walter Fane, a British bacteriologist, asks her to marry him and move to Hong Kong, she agrees, even though she is not in love with him. As soon as the newlyweds arrive in Hong Kong, however, Walter becomes subsumed in his medical work, and Katrin becomes the romantic target of Jack Townsend, the unhappily married attache to the British embassy. While showing her the city's exotic sights, Jack flirts with Katrin and kisses her. Katrin, unnerved by Jack's actions, retreats to her house, but soon rejoins him to observe local dancers performing at a Buddhist festival. Stimulated by the dancing and the atmosphere of a Buddhist temple, Jack confesses his love to Katrin, and Katrin admits that she is not in love with Walter. At home, Katrin then treats Walter coolly and reveals that his chronic lateness and fatigue annoy her. To make amends, Walter comes home early the next day, but discovers Katrin's bedroom door locked and Jack's hat on a table. That evening, Walter confronts Katrin with his suspicions, and she admits that she loves Jack. Distraught, Walter tells Katrin that he will grant her a divorce only if Jack promises in writing that he will divorce his wife and marry her. When Katrin presents Walter's conditions to Jack, he tells her that a divorce would ruin both his career and his reputation and backs out of the affair. Heartbroken, Katrin reluctantly accompanies Walter to an inland region of China, where a cholera epidemic is raging. While Walter struggles to arrest the epidemic, Katrin grows more and more despondent and lonely. Seeing Katrin's desperate condition, Walter finally offers to send her back to Hong Kong, then prepares to leave for a remote river village that has been identified as the root of the epidemic. After Walter has left, Jack realizes his genuine love for Katrin and leaves Hong Kong for the inland. Walter, who has ordered the infected village burned, then returns from the village and is overjoyed to find Katrin helping young cholera victims at an orphanage. In the chaos, Walter is stabbed, and Katrin rushes to be near him. While waiting to see her husband, Katrin is confronted by Jack, but tells him that she now loves only Walter and at last understands the sacrifices he makes for medicine. After Jack departs, Katrin assures the wounded Walter that she at last has fallen in love with him





IMDb

I always feel approaching a Greta Garbo film to review it is like entering some Sacred Temple where one must show due respect and restraint.For the whole of the 1930's decade she along with Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer held the prime positions as the annointed Queens of MGM. Garbo however always seemed to have her own special niche in the pecking order and always had more popularity with European audiences than with the average American movie going public who flocked to Crawford's shop girl melodramas and Shearer's lady like portrayals in high society settings.
Fresh from her triumph in "Queen Christina", the previous year MGM legend Garbo tackled this modern dress romantic film which turned out to be her last modern themed film for quite some time. Indeed by this stage in her career Garbo was down to only making one film a year so her productions were always viewed as special events even when their stories might not have always been up to the quality of the rest of the production. "The Painted Veil", is a classic example of just this. While the story itself is fairly ordinary the same cannot be said for the lavish production with all its "A" list features, and the interesting central performance by Garbo. The story centres around an Austrian girl named Katrin who after the wedding of her only sister finds herself at a loose end and lonely for companionship. Still in the fallout from the wedding Katrin meets her father's assistant Dr. Walter Fane (Herbert Marshall), a sturdy but unexciting man who is immediately infatuated with Katrin and on a whim asks her to marry him before he returns to his position in Hong Kong. With nothing more inviting on the horizon Katrin agrees and after the wedding travels to China with Walter where she takes her place as one of the colonies bored wives who spend their days shopping and playing cards. Into this setup comes Jack Townsend (George Brent),who works for the British Embassy in Hong Kong and very quickly the two are involved in an affair. Walter discovers the truth and to punish Katrin decides to go into China's interior to help fight the cholera epidemic taking her with him in the belief that there at least no man can have her and she will be deprived of her one source of happiness. Because Jack refuses to give up his promising career which he would have to do to marry Katrin, she goes with Walter where in the midst of the crisis the two begin to see the real value in each other. As the crisis worsens Walter is nearly killed by a stab wound inflicted by an angry villager who's house Walter orders burnt to fight the epidemic. Katrin who has been tirelessly nursing the cholera sufferers then rallies to he husband's side and even the reappearance of Jack in the plague stricken area cannot tear her away from her real duty to her husband.

Based on a novel by none other than W. Somerset Maugham, the material at times is a bit thin but still makes compulsive viewing if only to see Garbo's sterling performance as the wayward woman torn between two very different men. Directed with gusto by veteran MGM director Richard Boleslawski he keeps the main action against which the story is set rolling on. As the two male leads Herbert Marshall and George Brent have their work cut out for them against Garbo but come across rather well in their very different characters. Marshall plays his usual upright character but here is injected with just an element of malice to make his playing a little less bland than usual. George Brent used to playing against powerful leading ladies like Bette Davis has just the right element of the cad in his character to breathe a bit of life into what could have been a cardboard character. Being a Garbo vehicle all the MGM expertise are evident on the screen from the superb lighting for all of Garbo's closeups courtesy of William Daniels, her stunning clothes by the legendary MGM designer Adrian, the interesting depiction of China in the last days of the Empire and the quite harrowing scenes of the cholera stricken villages all created within the confines of MGM studios.

I find Greta Garbo always a pleasure to watch on screen and she manages with her unique style to breath life into any story no matter how weak the material. Her absolute understanding of any character she is playing is always very evident and no more so than in "The Painted Veil". I enjoy the real feel of olden times China which is created in this story and find it a terrific romantic drama and to sit back and enjoy. It certainly shows one of MGM's crowning glories in a lavish production created around her where she is showcased to perfection. I recommend the exotic "The Painted Veil", to anyone interested to studying the great mystique of the legendary Greta Garbo.
~ Simon Davis

DVDTalk

Usually not ranked in the top tier of Greta Garbo pictures, The Painted Veil shows the consummate actress breathing life into a story that even in 1934 must have seemed pretty stale. In just the past two years, audiences had seen movies fancy (Arrowsmith) and humble (Mandalay) involve the situation of a doctor husband, wife in tow, in a tropical outpost to fight deadly diseases. The sordid details of W. Somerset Maugham's original 1925 novel might have been a tough sell even in the Pre-Code era. Contemporary reviewers liked to snipe at Garbo, perhaps because she was so removed from the scuffle of the movie business, or because her talent was so great that critics were no longer needed. The Painted Veil has plenty of dialogue, but really functions like a silent movie. With a few exceptions, the drama is developed and played out on Garbo's face as she reacts to those around her and considers her own questionable choices. Her acting indeed functions on a different level than that of most film stars.

Viennese Katrin Koerber (Garbo) watches as her younger sister Olga (Cecilia Parker) marries and leaves on her honeymoon. Katrin hass turned down matrimonial opportunities because she wants something more from life. She gets it when a colleague of her father's, bacteriologist Walter Fane (Herbert Marshall) impulsively proposes that she marry him – he's returning to Hong Kong in just a couple of days. In the Crown Colony Katrin finds Walter absorbed in his work. Bored and frustrated, she begins an affair with customs official Jack Townsend (George Brent). When Walter finds out, he offers to give Katrin a divorce only if Jack will divorce his wife (Katherine Alexander) and marry her. Because she finally feels that she's in love, Katrin thinks this is the way out – but events don't cooperate.

The secret to appreciating The Painted Veil may be in understanding how much story exposition is made unnecessary by just a couple of glances from Garbo. In the Maugham book Katrin (Kitty) sees Walter's proposal, "Will you marry me?" as an escape from her stuffy home life. Her answer is "I suppose so." The thought of marrying Walter had never entered her mind. The film jumps directly from Katrin mumbling, "I want to think about it over tea", to the married couple arriving in Hong Kong. It's the look on Katrin's face that tells the tale. The Garbo Mystique may simply have arisen from the fact that her characters' thoughts and feelings aren't communicated in dialogue. We don't know how committed to Walter Kristen might be. Viewers still thinking of Garbo's masculine performance in Queen Christina can read whatever they wish into the big kiss on the lips – make that two big kisses on the lips – that Kristen gives to her little sister in the film's first scene.

Once in Hong Kong the film becomes yet another tale of sultry Anglo love in an exotic location. Walter and Katrin live in a house every bit as comfy as anything in Europe, with servants that insulate them from the picturesque but irrelevant 'teeming masses' outside. Dr. Fane's Chinese assistants (who include Keye Luke) strive to behave as English as possible. The only hint of what may have been the novel's insight into the colonial mindset comes with Forrester Harvey's Waddington, a deputy district commissioner. He's a Cockney chatterbox, solicitous of Katrin's company and hopelessly vulgar. Even she loses patience with him.

It's of course Garbo's show, as we're watching her at all times. Katrin goes through several trials of frustration and disillusion. When she has little choice but accompany Walter to a region struck by cholera, she's terrified that it's his plan for her to get sick and die. Maugham's book shows "Kitty" slowly finding new values, when a Mother Superior allows her to help work in the hospital, initially only in a limited way. The MGM adaptation naturally pulls off an instant transformation in which Katrin has suddenly become Florence Nightingale, shielding crying Chinese children from sickness and fear. Garbo is so good that this hoary development never seems tacky.

George Brent and to a lesser extent Herbert Marshall made a career supporting acting divas; both were fine actors but are so subdued here that we wish Katrin would run into a real man and take off with him. Marshall's researcher simply ignores Katrin whenever there's work to be done; even when he catches her being unfaithful his rage is subdued. The intent is surely to put things on a civilized level – these are supposed to be good people. We're impressed by the fact that Garbo's Katrin is apologetic about her adultery but refuses to wail or beg: as far as she's concerned what happened was inevitable considering Walter's attitude.

Brent was the king of vehicles starring the likes of Kay Francis, Ruth Chatterton, Bette Davis, and any top female star who needs a leading man who won't upstage her. He's also a very good actor. It's therefore fairly sad that Code morality requires that Jack's function as both a heel (seducing Katrin) and a hypocrite (my career can't afford a scandal!) be minimized. This hurts the drama to some degree – the marvelously insightful Katrin was taken in by this clod, and still wants him? Luckily, Garbo's largely non-verbal performance smoothes out all of this. As in most '30s MGM pix, everyone is just so damn noble. Without Garbo raising the quality level, I'm not sure what we'd have.

Also on the iffy side is MGM's handling of the Asian setting. Hong Kong and the interior 'plague towns' are represented by some impressive sets. We get Brent and Garbo pushed and pulled along by panicked crowds of peasants. Some Chinese men try to grab at Greta, which of course restates the prejudiced idea that Asian men are sex-mad over White Women. We definitely get the idea that Walter's effort to save lives is a contract between him and a greater morality, with the actual suffering Chinese somehow left out of the equation. Walter and a Chinese General (Warner Oland!) try to reason with the mob, rather foolishly.

The film creates some really attractive images that juxtapose Garbo against faux-Chinese artwork, photograph her through filmy nets, etc. William Daniels' lighting was as important a consideration as anything in the script. He includes soft-focus close-ups of Garbo that for all real purposes are simply out of focus. Instead of wondering what's up, we buy into the notion that Garbo is a romantic ideal, a phantom.

The weakest aspect of the film was probably a big selling point in 1934. A "Chinese Fantasy" outdoor theatrical presentation is meant to be a local festival tradition, but looks like it comes straight from the MGM art department, more specifically from designers who either want to be Mitchell Leisen or are waiting for the big Minnelli musical projects to drop from heaven. Jack and Kristen just happen upon an incredible floorshow pageant staged on a swooping set of stairs, with dancers wearing what look like chrome-plated Chinese dragon and demon costumes. Lots of wiggly swords, long fingernails, you get the drill. I could be wrong but it's all seen in cutaways – the Chinese Fantasy almost seems like something shot for a different movie, and that somehow got put here. We wouldn't complain, but the spectacle doesn't seem to have any bearing on the lovers' relationship – it isn't about the joy of illicit love or finding one's heart in Old Cathay.

The 'conceiver' of the Chinese Fantasy was Stowitts, a former ballet partner of Anna Pavlova whose cinematic claim to fame is his role as a horned faun-like character in the Hell sequence in Rex Ingram's impressive silent horror film The Magician … which is yet another story by W. Somerset Maugham. In the one still constantly reprinted from that show Stowitts kneels before a tree with his arm extended toward the frightened heroine… he's all but nude. Chester Hale staged the Fantasy. Adrian of course designed Garbo's fashions – she appears in one stunning dress after another. The exception is a white thing that looks like a military uniform, topped by a funny hat with an emblem sticking out of the crown. Katrin looks like she should be tearing tickets at Grauman's Chinese, or worse, like a teapot.

The Painted Veil gives us a positive message about nuns, social service and the healing power of healthy, Code-Approved marital fidelity. Maugham's original naturalistic ending was dropped in favor of letting 'em leave the theaters happy. It's all about Garbo. Although this isn't one of her timeless classics it's still a solid drama.
~ Glenn Erickson