Greer Garson

[mrsl]

Thank Heaven for Greer Garson :!: :!: I watched several of her movies on Tuesday, and taped a few also, not knowing that Friday was Groucho day - so luckily I had Greer to watch on Friday. I particularly call attention to Mrs. Parkington and That Forsyte Woman. In Mrs P. Greer ages from a young 19 or so to 80 something, and the make-up is very good, very similar to that of Martha Scott in Cheers for Miss Bishop. It's a soft making up, not hard and crusty like so often seen. Also I adore Walter Pidgeon in anything he does, although he was a little on the rough side in Mrs. P, but a sweetheart in Forsyte, where Errol Flynn was the creep. One thing I noticed was in watching That Forsyte Woman first, was the large nearly lifesized portrait of Greer hanging on the wall behind Errol in the dining room, in a scene near the end of the movie. Immediately following that, I began watching Mrs. P. and noticed, although it was in Black and White, what looked like the same portrait hanging in the foyer at the top of the double stairway, so of course I had to stop Mrs. P. and return to fast forward in TFW, to see if they are the same, and they are, which leads me to wonder as I did with the (Barefoot Contessa), Ava Gardner statue - what happened to it (I know now, Frankie got it). Of course one movie is in B&W and the other in color but you can tell by the dress and the pose. It's such a shame so many of Greer's movies were in B&W, because her coloring, like Maureen O'Hara, and Lucy, scream for technicolor. So, do any of you know if Ms. Garson was able to keep that portrait?

One of my favorite G.G. movies is Valley of Decision, another in B&W. In several scenes she is wearing a scotch plain dress with a matching tam, and I bet she made a terrific picture in that outfit with the colors, especially if the plaid was green.

Do we have any other Greer fans out there?
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[Professional Tourist]

I'm definitely a Greer Garson fan, would be even if she weren't one of Aggie's good friends. Love her in Mrs. Parkington. This past spring I had posted several photos of her in The Men's Room thread. I especially love the one of her standing up in front of the CBS radio microphone. It's a shame there isn't more true color photography of her available. Greer is groovy.

[JackFavell]

I love Greer Garson, with my favorites being Random Harvest, Pride and Prejudice, Madame Curie,Mrs. Miniver, and Goodbye Mr. Chips. I was really impressed with That Forsyte Woman this time around. I overlooked this film because I am such a big fan of the late sixties TV series. It boasted three really great performances, but I was very taken with Flynn's ice cold Soames... and Garson's delicate but determined Irene.

I feel like I have neglected her somewhat in the last few years, in the excitement of discovering pre-codes, westerns, and film noir. Greer is classic Hollywood at it's best, and I am starting to turn back to her, especially since I have become a mother, because she is what I aspire to be like - kind, warm, and fair.

She was made for technicolor, as you say, but the planes of her face are so striking in black and white.... her complexion just glows no matter what medium she is photographed in.

Another really wonderful performance of Greer's is as Calpurnia in Julius Caesar. She doesn't get much credit in that film because it is chock full of big performances by Brando, Mason, and Gielgud, but I thought she was just great in it, and perfect for the role.

[CineMaven]

Please count me in as a Greer Garson fan. Liked her in "Mrs. Miniver" and "Random Harvest." I recorded her the other day in "When Ladies Meet." Here she faces off with Joan Crawford. I wonder how Joanie got along with her, a new English lady upstart at M-G-M?? Very handsome woman...very good actress.

[Ollie]

She was 'a tad popular' in my mind and I didn't pay much attention to her films for many years but in the last 15 or so, I've definitely collected any I can find. She's one of the screen-beauties that appealed in all her various characters AND ages.

[JackFavell]

Nothing in this world could match the 1960's BBC series with that fabulous cast and script, but I DO like That Forsyte Woman. I too was surprised by it - Errol Flynn is quite convincing as Soames. I have begun to feel sorry for Flynn, trapped in that impossibly gorgeous face and body, but longing for something deeper to play. He strikes just the right tone in this one.

[mrsl]

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I know there are more than I'm going to mention here, but what you say about Errol Flynn Jack, makes me think that I've been kind of hard on other actors who actually died from being locked into certain images. Errol, Elvis, Marilyn, and George Reeves all come to mind as people who either committed suicide or drank to excess causing untimely deaths. Errol, I suppose was another who was locked into that sexy, one dimensional role, and nobody likes to live a lie forever if that is even possible. So, Kingrat, I don't find it odd at all that Errol would choose to play Soames instead of the others.

I have to say that the duo of Greer and Walter Pigeon is my favorite movie couple. They compliment each other so well, and in cases where they play lifelong partners, they just seem like an old long acquainted couple.

I always felt Robert Young was terribly mis-cast as Bosinney. He just does not have the oomph necessary to charm a woman of Greer's position. He's fine for young, innocent Janet, but to lure Greer, a stronger personage is needed. I could see a Robert Taylor, Ronald Colman or (perfectly) Cary Grant would all fit the part so much better than Young. Well, obviously, I could go on all day about Greer Garson movies, but I'll stop here, before I become tooo boring.
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[sandykaypax]

It's been a few years since I've seen That Forsyte Woman, but I also liked Errol Flynn as Soames. I had read the The Forsyte Sage, and so I was very curious as to how they cut it down into a feature film. Not bad. I agree that Robert Young was not the best choice for Bosinney, for the same reasons that Anne stated. I just couldn't see him sweeping Greer Garson off her feet. I didn't see the intense attraction between them.

I also liked the man who played Soames in the PBS version from a few years ago. I'll have to see if I can find the earlier series on dvd.

Sandy K

[JackFavell]

That guy who played Soames on the later British series was Damian Lewis, and he was the only reason i watched the series. He's quite an actor. For me, no one could top Eric Porter, who is loathsome and yet sympathetic, especially at the end.

The series from a few years ago was very pretty, with good sets, but could not compare in any way with the original, which was brilliantly directed, acted and written. It also is the only one that had the time to really cover what was in the book. The scope of the 1967 series is gigantic. The series was huge - there are 26 episodes. Each is a gem of construction - sometime just watch how the camera moves - it's a lesson in directing for TV.

I am sorry to digress from Greer! I found part one on youtube. Sorry too about the subtitles.:

[youtube][/youtube]

[charliechaplinfan]

I'll second you on Damian Lewis, he's an actor I'd watch a series for, heck I got through all of Band of Brothers and enjoyed it and was only watching it because of Damian.

I haven't watched very many Greer Garson movies. I admit she does light up the screen when on it, she has an aura but I struggled with Mrs Miniver and watched Random Harvest recently but found he ending such an anticlimax. I will watch out for her outing with Errol Flynn as Soames, somehow I can see her being well suited to the role of Irene.

[JackFavell]

I used to love Mrs. Miniver but haven't been able to watch it recently. Random Harvest is great, but for me it is just a tad too long- the section where he goes back home is too long for my liking.

She is an excellent Irene. I watched Madame Curie recently and found it much better than I had remembered - her performance is very intense.

[charliechaplinfan]

I really liked her in Goodbye Mr Chips.

I have to confess when I did try to watch Mrs Miniver it was Christmas Eve and people kept just turning up out of the blue. How inconsiderate, my opinion is probably based on the fragments I saw. I'd probably like it if I got chance to watch it properly.

[moira finnie]

I used to love Mrs. Miniver but haven't been able to watch it recently. Random Harvest is great, but for me it is just a tad too long- the section where he goes back home is too long for my liking.

I find that leaving films alone for a few years and then seeing them again sometimes makes them fresh again. I don't think I could watch Mrs. Miniver annually, but have fond memories of the intimate domestic scenes between Garson and Pidgeon when they are alone, as well as her confrontation with Helmut Dantine's flyer. I'm not crazy about the long, drawn out sequences with Henry Travers tugging at his forelock humbly or those scenes emphasizing the disparity between the rising middle classes, especially the Minivers, and the aristocracy, represented by Dame May Whitty, whose character was more interesting when she was crusty.

Do you ever have the feeling that parts of Greer Garson's movies are better than the whole?

I love her performance in Random Harvest, especially her high spirits and tenderness, which are excellent up to the point when Ronald Colman goes to Liverpool on business. She was quite effective in the later scene when she shows Colman the cheap blue beads that mean so much to her, but the last third of the movie needed to be sped up, though the last scene is quite good.

Greer with the acrobats in Julia Misbehaves

I also love Julia Misbehaves when she's trapped in the bathtub by her creditors and when she joins Cesar Romero's acrobatic troupe, but the palaver over Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Lawford was incredibly dull. Maybe she was less tense when she was part of an ensemble rather than being a star, since she was so good in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and again in That Forsythe Woman

*possible spoiler below*
I agree about the quality of her balanced performance with Walter Pidgeon in Madame Curie, but wish they hadn't tacked on the old lady scene at the end. The film would have been poignant enough if she just went on working after Pierre's death.

Two films with Greer Garson that I have to admit being drawn into, even though they are generally considered a disaster for her career, were Adventure (1945) and Desire Me (1947). Neither are great movies, but maybe one reason I like them was because both movies were beautifully photographed in b & w by John Ruttenberg.


Adventure paired Greer Garson's librarian with Gable's merchant seaman. It was his first picture since the war, and there are moments when you can almost see him trying to avoid the camera's gaze. I wonder if he couldn't have used more time away from movies--just a period when he was away from the platinum pressure cooker in Culver City and the stresses of military life to gather his thoughts and finally deal with all he'd been through since Lombard's death--though MGM certainly wasn't going to let him go. There really wasn't much plot to this, but lots of colorful characters on the sidelines and some whimsy that didn't quite work. He and Garson weren't supposed to get along, (on or off camera) but they have a kind of bumptious, rough and smooth chemistry I sort of liked as they circle one another and put up their defenses almost as soon as they come together.

Their cast mates, Joan Blondell and Thomas Mitchell, are wonderfully appealing. Joan played Garson's fellow librarian who's funny and perceptive. Mitchell was a simple merchant seaman with a mystical streak who believes that he may have lost is soul. The film is not--despite that title--an adventure, except in that sense that it explores the adventure that most of us pursue at one time or another by falling in love, often whether we like it or not. Maybe post-war audiences expected too much--certainly MGM did. No wonder screenwriter Frances Marion, to whom Clark Gable turned for advice about his role, called it "a studio plot to kill off two stars" and told the director Victor Fleming that it was "a great title" with "a false promise." Based on a book called The Anointed by Clyde Brion Davis about a 14 year old boy's life journey, (which might explain the infantilism of Gable's character at times), the studio had purchased the rights to the story in the late '30s for a possible Freddie Bartholemew vehicle. Frustration over working on this movie caused the director to think seriously about retiring.


If I could wave a wand and rework this movie, I might have made it more episodic, and had a series of scenes when Gable shows up in Garson's life over a period of years, annoying and enticing her into falling for him, despite his footloose nature and her starchiness. Perhaps they could have allowed Mitchell to finally get the girl in at least one movie--he and Blondell might have been cute together, though the sparks between Blondell and Gable are pretty obvious too. Garson and Gable might not end up married in this imaginary revised version either, but that would mean giving up a heartbreaker of a scene when Gable pleads with his baby boy to live. *sniff* it's a killer!


Greer with Robert Mitchum and Richard Hart in Desire Me (1947).

Desire Me (1947), which I saw in toto for the first time recently, might hold some kind of record for uncredited directors, including Jack Conway, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy and Victor Saville. I believe it was mostly Cukor who was held responsible for the finished film, though he winced when reminded of it. Desire Me featured Greer Garson, Robert Mitchum and Richard Hart (fresh off the oddball epic, Green Dolphin Street) as French citizens living in Brittany. Yeah, right. That is quite a stretch, but then I started to remember that the Bretons are supposed to be of Celtic origin. Just as I started to warm to that idea, I learned that Greer is supposed to be from Paris and so is Hart! So Mitchum is the only Frenchman from that region. I am definitely overthinking this one, but that may have been caused by the plot, which is confusing.

The story begins as two French POWs, Mitchum and Hart, while away their time listening to Bob describe in great detail his perfect life as a fisherman with his perfect wife (Greer) in their stone cottage by the sea (it was filmed on the spectacular California coast at Monterey which was very beautiful, even if a rogue wave almost swept Greer and Hart out to sea). Following the war, Hart is released from his prison and made his way to the cottage he knows like the back of his hand. He tells Marise (Greer Garson) that her husband is dead, and he has clearly fallen in love with the "idea" of this woman, this life, and this place, though this is the first time he has ever been there.

This is the stuff of great potential romance or a heckuva psychosis, but there was something about Garson's muted performance that I enjoyed seeing. She is a very introverted character, and spends most of the movie questioning her own judgment as this guy wheedles his way into her life. Guilt, powerlessness and her private grief over her husband are all steamrolled by this stranger who says he loves her. Several of the scenes don't make logical sense, though the idea of trying to keep going by plunging into a marriage with this odd man strikes her as illogical too. Perhaps some of the more confusing scenes are the result of the lack of direction, making it never entirely clear if love or lunacy was motivating Hart. Or maybe both. It didn't help the story that the PCA regarded the story as a study of illicit love, so the screenwriters seemed to equivocate about his motives all the time. They masked the behavior so efficiently, I couldn't figure out if Hart and Garson's characters were actually having an affair--though that is probably one reason I stuck with this movie.

It was also unfortunate that Robert Montgomery, who had originally been cast in the role of Greer's missing hubby, had to be taken off the picture so he could start making Lady in the Lake on time. Robert Mitchum was originally cast in the Hart role, and that might have worked, since he might have mustered the requisite blend of charisma and menace needed for the interloper's character--though how Selnick/MGM ever thought they were going to make his hulking presence into a romantic figure on screen, I'll never understand. It's not that he wasn't a good actor--he was. Btw, Mitchum was shooting Vincente Minnelli's Undercurrent at MGM and The Locket at RKO at the same time as Desire Me. He just wasn't an MGM type at all. He fought with Cukor, called Garson "Red", told anyone who would listen that L.B. Mayer "would lick the floor clean at the approach of Greer Garson." He claimed that he ate onions and blue cheese on his hamburger before love scenes with Garson, so he wasn't Mr. Congeniality. In the end, poor Richard Hart wasn't either. He had a heart condition that was not helped by that episode on the rocks, the tension on the set, or the lame scripts that MGM handed him--though at least he had one good movie, Anthony Mann's Reign of Terror (1949), before the poor guy died at only 35. Here's a site that fills in some blanks about Richard Hart.

The final confrontation in the film, after an understandably vexed Mitchum reappears from the dead, takes place in a fog, appropriately. Despite all this going against the movie, Garson genuinely conveys the loneliness, confusion and tentative air of her character, who is tied in knots by everything that was happening to her quiet life. It has a dreamlike appeal, and makes just about as much sense as one.

Speaking of The Forsythe Saga (I loved Kenneth More's Jolyon and my heart broke for Eric Porter's great performance as Soames), does anyone remember that Greer Garson introduced each episode of The Pallisers here in America? That was a great British series too, with Roger Livesey in one of his last roles, Jeremy Irons in one of his first, and the wonderful Irish actor, Donal McCann as Phineas Finn, the Irish member of Parliament. It made me devour all of the Anthony Trollope stories I could find.