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Queen Christina | 
| Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Actors: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elizabeth Young
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $5.29
You Save: $14.69 (74%)
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Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 48836
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dvd, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 99 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: WARD67387D
ISBN: 1419807552
UPC: 012569673878
EAN: 9781419807558
ASIN: B0009S4IJC
Theatrical Release Date: 1933
Release Date: September 6, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The country of sweden was shocked when their queen abdicated her throne for the man she loved. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/06/2005 Starring: Greta Garbo Ian Keith Run time: 99 minutes Rating: Nr
Amazon.com essential video
Arguably Greta Garbo's best MGM movie--depending how you feel about Camille and Ninotchka--this tale of the 17th-century Swedish monarch who preferred men's togs to gowns plays the most provocative games with the great star's ambisexual personality. At her request, Rouben Mamoulian directed (all three Garbo's-best-movie candidates were done by the best directors she worked with: Mamoulian, George Cukor, and Ernst Lubitsch). Two sequences are legendary: Christina memorizing the room at a snowbound inn where she has first experienced love; and the long, concluding closeup of a queen become ship's-figurehead--as blank as a tabula rasa, and filled with all the meaning and emotion seven decades of audiences have chosen to see there. Those scenes are anthology pieces, but unlike most Garbo pictures, the whole movie is intelligently scripted and sustained. With Lewis Stone, C. Aubrey Smith, and John Gilbert--Garbo's premier silent-era costar--making a tentative comeback as her love interest. --Richard T. Jameson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Garbo's most sensitive screen performance May 24, 2009
Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood)
QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933) was the first movie which Greta Garbo made as part of a secret development deal with MGM studios. Other stars like Clark Gable had campaigned without success to head their own production units inside the MGM. When it became clear that Garbo wouldn't submit to the same rules and restrictions as other contract players, a deal was brokered so that she would continue--under a reduced workload--as one of MGM's most valuable box office attractions during the lean years of the Depression.
With a script tailored by good friend Salka Viertel and sensitive direction from Rouben Mamoulian (with whom she'd later have a torrid affair), QUEEN CHRISTINA is one of Garbo's most effective and personal films, the story of Sweden's legendary Queen Christina, a woman renowned for her affairs with both sexes. The character's bisexual leanings--painted so blatantly in Garbo's scenes with Elizabeth Young (as Christina's lady-in-waiting)--leave precious little doubt as to their true relationship.
QUEEN CHRISTINA also marked the end of Garbo's screen partnership with John Gilbert. Although the two had enjoyed a long-standing relationship off the screen (exploited to tremendous effect in such silent classics as "Love" and "Flesh and the Devil"), it had ended by the time that Gilbert played Don Antonio to Garbo's Christina. He sadly passed away three years after his performance.
Regarded by most as Garbo's greatest performance, QUEEN CHRISTINA deserves a place in every classic movie collection.
A Great Vehicle for Garbo January 27, 2008
R. Swanson (New Mexico)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Garbo is Garbo here, and that's really all that needs to happen. She is splendid and it's worth sitting through this otherwise rather silly film to see her. Historically, it's not at all accurate but if you are more interestd in Hollywood glamour than reality, then this shouldn't bother you.
John Gilbert really does look awful, and it's very hard to imagine that anyone would fall instantly in love with him. But then it's even more difficult to believe that Garbo as Christina, dressed in man's clothes could convince anyone that she was a man. Maybe if they had removed her lipstick and eyeliner...but that's show business.
It's a great film for die hard Garbo fans who overlook all these flaws just to see her. Others, beware.
 Maybe Garbo's best June 23, 2007
Douglas M
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Many of the films of the great Greta Garbo are a trial because so often she was the luminous centre in absurd stories with unworthy costars. "Queen Christina" is one of the handful of films which rise to her level.
The films tells of the abdication of Christina of Sweden when she fell in love with a Spanish nobleman. The film starts slowly and not very well establishing Christina's persona as a peace maker surrounded by a court of ambitious war mongers. When it shifts into romance and the usual problem of royalty in films, loyalty and responsibility to country versus personal needs, it improves immeasurably. Garbo is subjected to a barrage of close ups by the director Rouben Mamoulian but they are carefully placed and she survives magnificently, superbly conveying her changing emotions. The object of her love is John Gilbert, a giant silent screen star and ex-lover of Garbo, but here towards the end of his career. He is not completely convincing as a worthy object of her desires. He looks popeyed and weedy. The film has 2 very famous scenes - when Garbo "remembers", filmed to the rhythm of a metronome, the room where she and Gilbert slept together and the ending at the bow of the ship when her blank face is scrutinised and the audience fill in the blanks. The film is sumptuously made in the MGM manner and there is an excellent supporting cast, particularly C Aubrey Smith.
The film's print is dirty and obviously unrestored. There are no extras except the original trailer so if you want to learn more, you will have to purchase it in one of the Garbo Collections which contain documentaries.
Queen Christina June 21, 2007
John Farr
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mamoulian's film creaks a bit with some broad playing from secondary actors, but Garbo's luminosity more than makes up for it. She is not only ravishing, but her persona is tailor-made for the strong, mannish role of Christina. Former fiance Gilbert is also fine as Antonio, which places the subsequent demise of this actor's career squarely at the feet of studio boss L.B. Mayer, who didn't like him. Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, and C. Aubrey Smith lend skilled support in this, one of the screen's crowning early biopics.
 Heavy Hangs Garbo's Head November 25, 2006
Chris Roberts (Astoria, NY)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
As I continued my quest through Greta Garbo's career I came across this film, a big sweeping historical romance that has a pure heart but a very dry tongue. The story involves the Queen of Sweden (Garbo) who rules over a people that are not too bright and advisors that are constantly clamoring for war. Early on Christina calls off the war in the name of the peasants which leaves the warmongers frothing at the mouth. Decisions like this serve to make her character more likeable and little else as the political landscape she presides over has no real consequences. The romantic part of the story kicks in one night when Christian is out and about and gets marooned inside a cabin thanks to a massive snowfall. Also in the cabin are a bunch of drunken Spaniards, and one, Don Antonio (John Gilbert) who is especially attractive. The catch is that this guy believes she is a he, and since he believes it she seems to magically morph into a male. I know that if you need a she to play a he Garbo is your girl, but she makes no effort to hide her femininity so I found this scene to be extremely unlikely. But no matter. Once they are alone she is outed as a female but not as a queen, they fall in love and then must separate.
The thing about historical romances is that it is always the history driving the wedge between the lovebirds, be it a sinking ship or King Charles. So of course Don Antonio is the advisor to King Charles, and of course he has his royal eye on Christina. This all comes to pass when Don Antonio pays a visit to Christina's castle not knowing that she is queen. His presence has negative effects almost immediately. The masses, never known for their smarts, start riots outside over the thought of their queen doing it with a foreigner (who even knew Swedish nationalism existed?). Then, like now, the people were only able to take an interest in politics if it involved a sex scandal that they could be outraged (!) about. Her other lover around the castle gets jealous and we see lots of squabbling, an aspect that was reminiscent of the "Elizabeth I" movie from earlier this year. The ending of the film is actually quite refreshing. For once we see a person look around and realize that the cost of her position is more than she is interested in paying. We humans love to sell out without thinking, here Christina does the opposite. It was not enough to save the film for me. The dealings for castle politics got to be a drag fairly quickly. I also simply don't believe Garbo in this role. She always seems mysterious and haunting, not powerful and appealing. So while the film is perfectly enjoyable I'm giving it a mild thumbs down. I didn't believe the filmmakers when they told me that Christina rose above her position, but I did believe them when they told me she was leaving it. The sad thing is that there is a good movie in here somewhere, just director Rouben Mamoulian couldn't get the story engine humming fast enough to find it. ***
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