The Painted Veil (1934)

Feeling lonely and desiring a life beyond her native Austria, a young woman (Greta Garbo) impulsively marries a doctor (Herbert Marshall) even though she doesn't love him. She accompanies him to China where she falls in love with a British diplomat (George Brent). Loosely based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham and directed by Richard Boleslawski (THEODORA GOES WILD). MGM coughed up a lavish million dollar budget for this exotic romance and it paid off, the movie was one of Garbo's biggest hits. The film itself is uneven but it's well made and above all, there's the divine Garbo. This is one of my favorite performances by her. It's not acclaimed like her work in CAMILLE, QUEEN CHRISTINA or NINOTCHKA but she seems so vibrant here and she plays as close to an "ordinary" woman as she ever played, not a dying courtesan, a Swedish Queen or a Russian envoy. Considering Garbo was anything but ordinary, she brings a touching sense of an ordinary woman placed in extraordinary circumstance and (eventually) rising to it. Remade with Eleanor Parker in 1957 and Naomi Watts in 2006. With Warner Oland (again playing Asian), Jean Hersholt, Cecilia Parker and Keye Luke.