Anna Christie (1930) Xvid 1cd - English Version - Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford - Classic [DDR]

2014.01.15


Anna Christie (1930) Xvid 1cd - English Version - Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford - Classic [DDR]

Anna Christie is a 1930 MGM Pre-Code drama film adaptation of the 1922 play by Eugene O'Neill. It was adapted by Frances Marion, produced and directed by Clarence Brown with Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg as co-producers. The cinematography was by William H. Daniels, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and the costume design by Adrian.

The film stars Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, George F. Marion, and Marie Dressler.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress (Greta Garbo), Best Cinematography and Best Director. This pre-Code film is the movie that used the marketing slogan "Garbo Talks!", as it was her first talkie.

Of all its stars, Garbo was the one that MGM kept out of talking films the longest for fear that one of their biggest stars, like so many others, would not succeed in them. Her famous first line is: "Gimme a whisky", ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby!" In fact, Garbo's English was so good by the time she appeared in this film, she had to add an accent in several retakes to sound more like the Swedish Anna.

George F. Marion performed the role of Anna's father in the original Broadway production and in both the 1923 and 1930 film adaptations.

In addition to the English and German-language version of this film, a silent version with titles was also made.

Anna Christie was the highest grossing film of 1930 and received the following Academy Award nominations:

Best Actress – Greta Garbo
Best Director – Clarence Brown
Best Cinematography – William Daniels

A German version of the film was made the same year and was also produced by MGM. Except for Garbo it had a different cast and was directed by Jacques Feyder. Cost and earnings figures were combined with the English version, above.

CAST:-
Greta Garbo as Anna Christie
Charles Bickford as Matt Burke
George F. Marion as Chris Christofferson
Marie Dressler as Marthy Owens
James T. Mack as Johnny the Harp
Lee Phelps as Larry

Directed by Clarence Brown
Produced by Clarence Brown, Paul Bern, Irving Thalberg
Written by Frances Marion (screenplay), Eugene O'Neill (play)

MOVIE REVIEW:- Anna Christie (1930) English Version
In the early days of sound films, it was common for Hollywood studios to produce "Foreign Language Versions" of their films using the same sets, costumes and so on. While many of these versions no longer exist, the German-language versions of Anna Christie survives. This German version of German-language version, also starred Garbo, along with Theo Shall, Hans Junkermann and Salka Viertel. (In this version, the famous opening line became "Whisky – aber nicht zu knapp!" ["Whiskey, but not too short">.) The English and German-language versions grossed a combined $1,499,000
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In the famed, immortalized scene that is about sixteen minutes into this over-rated and stagy drama, weary and ailing, man-hating Swedish-American streetwalker Anna Gustafson Christie (Greta Garbo), searching for her estranged barge captain father Chris Gustafson (George F. Marion) to seek redemption, makes her grand entrance into a NY Battery waterfront saloon from a foggy street. The bar's waiter holds open the door to the Ladies Entrance as she struggles in, lugging an old, weighty suitcase. She shuffles over to a wooden table across from where her father's boozing companion Marthy (Marie Dressler) sits, and drops her suitcase onto the floor. Anna takes a seat in a chair, crouches down, and finally delivers her famous opening lines. In a deep and husky, heavily-accented voice, she orders:

Anna: Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby!
Waiter: (sarcastically) Well, shall I serve it in a pail?
Anna: (bluntly) Ah, that suits me down to the ground. (After the whiskey is served and downed) Gee, I needed that bad all right, all right.

Anna Christie (1930) was advertised, in a two-word ad campaign, as the first talking picture (and 14th film) for cinema's greatest silent star - an asexual, supercool Nordic beauty named Greta Garbo: "Garbo Talks!" MGM Studios was quite concerned about their alluring, 24 year-old talented actress. She was one of their biggest stars, but she had a potential liability - her untested, heavy Swedish accent. Many other silent stars had already failed or struggled to make the transition to the sound era - Nita Naldi, Vilma Banky, and John Gilbert (satirized in MGM's Singin' in the Rain (1952)). Even after talkies were inaugurated in 1927, Garbo starred in more silents, e.g., The Single Standard (1929) and The Kiss (1929).
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Finally, the star's first talkie (an "ALL TALKING PICTURE") was carefully chosen for her, mostly because it perfectly suited her Swedish accent. And a familiar director Clarence Brown was also assigned to the film, having already directed Garbo in Flesh and the Devil (1926), and A Woman of Affairs (1928) (and later Anna Karenina (1935) and Conquest (1937)).

The role Garbo would play, a sickly prostitute, would be in sharp contrast to the glamorous characters she had already played in silent films.

The 89 minute, black and white Anna Christie was adapted (by influential screenwriter Frances Marion) from Eugene O'Neill's play of the same name. It had earlier been a stage play, and had been filmed by producer Thomas H. Ince and director John Griffith Wray as a silent picture in 1923, with Blanche Sweet as the heroine, and George F. Marion in the same role that he played onstage (and in this version). In 1984, a film directed by Sidney Lumet, titled Garbo Talks (1984), used this film's slogan in a story about a woman whose dying wish was to meet her screen idol Garbo.

MOVIE REVIEW:- Anna Christie (1930) English Language Version
Chris Christofferson (George F. Marion), the alcoholic skipper of a coal barge in New York, receives a letter from his estranged twenty-year-old daughter Anna "Christie" Christofferson (Greta Garbo), telling him that she'll be leaving Minnesota to stay with him. Chris left Anna to be raised by relatives on a St. Paul farm 15 years before, and hasn't seen her since.

Anna arrives an emotionally wounded woman with a dishonorable, hidden past: she has worked in a brothel for two years. One night, Chris rescues Matt (Charles Bickford) and two other displaced sailors from the sea. Anna and Matt soon fall in love and Anna has the best days of her life. But when Matt proposes to her, she is reluctant and haunted by her recent past. Matt insists and compels Anna to tell him the truth. She opens her heart to Matt and her father, disclosing her dark secrets.



TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:-
Video Codec: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Video Bitrate: 855 kbps
Video Resolution: 640x480
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1
Frames Per Second: 23.976
Audio Codec: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages:English
RunTime 90 mins
Subtitles: NONE
Ripped by: Trinidad [DDR]
Duration: 90 mins