Two Faced Woman (1941)

A magazine editor (Melvyn Douglas) has a whirlwind romance with a ski instructor (Greta Garbo) and they rush into marriage. But their lifestyles and outlook on life are quite different and he returns to Manhattan while she remains at the ski lodge where they met. Based on the play by Ludwig Fulda and directed by George Cukor (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY). The film is infamous for being the film that drove Garbo away from Hollywood and she never acted again. The movie was a box office flop and she hated it. So, is it really that bad? Not at all and in fact, the first hour is quite charming before it crashes and burns in the dull last half hour. The original cut of the film (where Garbo pretends to be her twin to win Douglas back) was considered quite risque and it was condemned by the Catholic Legion Of Decency which caused MGM to cut the film and insert a sequence where Douglas realizes that its his wife impersonating her "twin sister" and thus remove the adultery angle. Certainly, not a classic but far from the disaster its reputation would suggest. Garbo seems uncomfortable in some scenes (like her rhumba number) but it works for her character who is playing something she is not. With Constance Bennett, Ruth Gordon, Robert Sterling, Roland Young and Gloria DeHaven.