Grand Hotel 1932 - Garbo 'wants to be alone'

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Edmund Goulding
Main Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt

"Based on Vicki Baum's novel, Grand Hotel is the prototype for the all-star ensemble film and an excellent example of the rich and glamorous escapist entertainment, often from MGM, that took on enhanced prominence during the Depression. Produced by Irving Thalberg using top-end ingredients and state-of-the-art technology, it is yet another example of MGM's dominance during the 1930s for this type of film. The plot exists merely as a device to get star faces on the screen, particularly that of Greta Garbo. Though only moderately respected by the critics, Grand Hotel has proven itself of enduring influence, both for Garbo's performance and for creating star-heavy blockbusters that peaked in the 1950s with Around the World in 80 Days. Grand Hotel won Best Picture at the 1932 Academy Awards." - www.allmovie.com

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Tarzan, the ape man 1932 - The one and only original Tarzan movie that started it all

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IMDB rating: 7,2

Director: W. S. Van Dyke
Main Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith, Neil Hamilton, Doris Lloyd

"Tarzan, The Ape Man was not only MGM's inaugural Tarzan film, but also the first to star former Olympic swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller as The Lord of the Jungle (strange but true: one of the pre-Weissmuller Tarzan candidates was Clark Gable!)
Utilizing scads of stock footage from MGM's Trader Horn (1931), the film begins with great white hunter James Parker (C. Aubrey Smith) trekking through darkest Africa in search of the legendary Elephant Graveyard. Accompanying Parker is his daughter Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) and her erstwhile beau Harry Holt (Neil Hamilton). The expedition is habitually sabotaged by the ecology-conscious Tarzan, a white man who'd been lost in the jungle years earlier and raised by Apes. Tarzan kidnaps Jane and spirits her away to the treetops, where she gradually overcomes her fear of the Loinclothed One and teaches him to speak English. The perfect gentleman, Tarzan returns Jane to her father and swings off into the distance. When Parker, Jane and Holt are captured by pygmies, Tarzan comes to the rescue, with an entourage of his elephant friends. At fade-out time, Jane has decided to renounce civilization and spend the rest of her life with Tarzan.
The only one of the MGM Tarzans actually based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs originals, Tarzan the Ape Man proved a surprise hit, spawning an endless parade of sequels and remakes.
The movie was one of Irving Thalberg's 'pet' projects at MGM, an opportunity to take an existing franchise (Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle lord had been a film staple since beefy Elmo Lincoln donned a loincloth, in 1918), give it 'A'-list production values and a 'name' director (W.S. Van Dyke), introduce charismatic actors as the leads (28-year old multiple Olympic champion Johnny Weissmuller and 21-year old Irish import Maureen O'Sullivan), and create a 'definitive' success for the studio." - www.allmovie.com

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Camille 1936 - Garbo's greatest triumph on screen

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028683/
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan

"Camille is one of the most romantically-atmospheric films ever made. It is a tearjerker classic - a well-known, lavish, luxuriously-mounted, melodramatic love/tragedy of Hollywood's Golden Age. Director George Cukor's film, his first with Greta Garbo, was also the first talking version of the content. It was adapted by Zoe Akins, Frances Marion, and James Hilton from Alexandre Dumas Fils' 1852 novel/play (La Dame aux Camelias) of the doomed romance of a tubercular courtesan/demimonde of ill repute in 19th century Paris.
Camille is also among MGM's most lavish productions of the 1930s, and features what many critics consider to be Greta Garbo's greatest film performance. Garbo's portrayal of the beautiful but sickly Parisian courtesan, who fatefully falls in love with a young French nobleman (25 year-old Robert Taylor), is widely considered the definitive version of the Camille story. Among the last of the projects overseen by studio production chief Irving Thalbeerg, (who died shortly before filming ended) the film boasted MGM's customary collection of behind-the-camera all-stars, including director George Cukor, whose patient attention to Garbo helped her to find just the right tone for her role. The supporting cast is similarly solid, highlighted by standouts Henry Daniell and Laura Hope Crews. They help to deflect attention from the film's weaker scenes, most of which involve Lionel Barrymore as the father of the frustrated suitor (Taylor). Despite spending the latter part of the film succumbing to illness, Garbo looks radiant, thanks to her Adrian gowns and William Daniels' loving cinematography.
Cukor - who had already directed the classic Dinner at eight (1933), and would go on to make further screen greats such as The Philadelphia story 1940 and My fair lady 1964 - captured the most exquisite, poetic, restrained performance of the great screen actress. In her most popular and luminous film, Garbo was recognized for her performance with the film's sole Academy Award nomination, but she lost to Luise Rainer who won for another, heavily-promoted MGM classic, The Good Earth."

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Mutiny on the Bounty 1935 - The height of MGM film-making during the Thalberg era

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026752/
IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: Frank Lloyd
Main Cast: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone

"Filming on location in Tahiti, the studio spent $2 million in production costs, an astounding sum for 1935. Thalberg's boss, Louis B. Mayer, opposed the film, but the production chief prevailed, insisting that the public was fascinated by cruelty. Indeed, Charles Laughton's Captain Bligh is among the screen's most despicable villains, never mind that the historic Captain Bligh was a substantially more complex person, and the heroic Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) of the film is hardly the Fletcher Christian of history who kidnapped Tahitian natives and forced them to work as slaves for his mutineers. Mutiny on the Bounty holds up well as a grand tale of adventure, beautifully filmed, with charismatic lead performances and the quality of production that made Thalberg's work legendary. It is a rarity in Academy Awards history: a Best Picture winner that won only that one Oscar. The bigger winner for the night was John Ford's The informer, which took four Oscars, all at Bounty's expense." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/mutiny-on-the-bounty-v33980

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