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Garbo, with her leading man Melvyn Douglas, and director Lubitsch rehearse a scene for her new film, the great star's first comedy role.
An Open Letter to Garbo
"T T[ TELCOME back — in the knick of time. ^^^/ If you had stayed away from the screen for a split-second longer, people would be asking each other: "Garbo — let's see now — the name seems familiar, but I can't put the face — " and hurry along for another look at Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth, or a gander at newcomers Geraldine Fitzgerald or Brenda Joyce. You've been away for long intervals before this, I know; but now you have returned to a Hollywood remarkably changed; a Hollywood having growing pains in the box-office — a motion picture business in the painful process of becoming an Art — and without you, too.
But you know all that. You are nobody's fool, Madame. I remember you once said to me, "Oh, yes — we read all your screen magazines very carefully in Hollywood." Nothing escapes the long-lashed cynical eyes, I'll bet. So you know all about that current wonder-woman, La Davis, who shaves her head in the cause of characterization; about the triple-star film, "The Women"; about the new films of some social significance we're so proud of. You are, I'm sure, prepared.
So — you're doing a bright, light, brittle comedy, "Ninotchka" (working title), under the direction of
Ernst Lubitsch, whose last effort, if I'm not mistaken, was that Dietrich film (her last, too) called "Desire." By your own wish, I understand, you're doing this light, bright, brittle business, believing a comeback in a gay film is the solution to your particular problem. I hope you're right. How I hope so. Because I'm one of those faithful Original Garbo Fans. I've loved it when other fans, instead of asking what Hedy Lamarr is really like, have said instead, "I wish Garbo would come back. There's nobody like her." I feel the same way. For the true Garbo is an artiste in the grand and dateless tradition — the sole cinema personality save Chaplin with the magnificent touch — surely, the one legendary lady the films have produced or will produce. Garbo belongs on a pedestal. If she starts taking falls, or playing screwballs; if she so much as makes a gaudy gesture, she will break our hearts. We want to keep on believing that not only those eyelashes, but the art, are real.