My review of Elizabeth Wilson’s spy novel,The Girl in Berlin, is posted today at For Books’ Sake.

Many films of the silent era are now lost, but only one of them starred Greta Garbo. In 1993, a nine-minute reel from The Divine Woman (1928) was found at Moscows Gosfilmofond archive.

Philip J. Riley, a former musician, has published a series of books about vintage monster films, including another lost silent gem, London After Midnight (1927), starring Lon Chaney, also novelised.

Following the Chaney vehicle, Riley has reprinted Gladys Ungers The Divine Woman with a short introduction, shedding new light on a long-forgotten story.

In 1928, MGMs production chief, Irving Thalberg, commissioned Unger – author of the 1925 play, Starlight, on which Dorothy Farnums screenplay was based to write a tie-in novelette to accompany The Divine Womans cinematic release.

The story is loosely based on the early life of Sarah Bernhardt, the fabled actress who dominated the Parisian theatre during the later 19^th century. Known as the divine Sarah, she died in 1923. Bernhardt was known for embellishment, so if the plot is mostly fantasy, this may not be a grave concern.

Perhaps more than any other movie star, Greta Garbo inspired not merely lust, or envy, but awe. She too was often described as divine.

Born in Stockholm in 1905, and discovered by the Swedish film-maker, Mauritz Stiller, Garbo made her Hollywood debut at twenty, and quickly became the worlds most feted star. She played alongside her real-life lover, John Gilbert, in Flesh and the Devil (1927.)

Garbos austere beauty and melancholic persona were far removed from the flappers of the day and yet, she captured the imagination. Her innate shyness only enhanced her mystique.

The narrative can be divided into three distinct episodes. In the first, the young Marah is brought from the provincial farm (where she was raised by her adoptive family), to Paris by a theatrical producer, Monsieur Carre, who introduces Marah to her real mother, the courtesan Rosine.

Next, the rejected daughter finds herself on the streets of Paris, where she falls in love with Lucien, a soldier. She goes to work for Madame Pigonnier, an elderly seamstress. After hearing that he is to be dispatched to Africa, Lucien deserts the army and goes into hiding with Marah.

In the final chapters, Lucien is arrested. Alone again, Marah is drawn to the stage and quickly becomes the most popular actress in Paris. But she is privately unhappy and longs for Luciens return, though he feels that she has betrayed him.

This melodramatic storyline is typical of Garbos early films. However, The Divine Woman was directed by Victor Sjstrm, edited by Conrad A. Nervig, and featured another Swede, Lars Hanson, as Lucien. This would have been very agreeable to Garbo, who was lonely in Hollywood. (Just four years earlier, Hanson had appeared in The Saga of Gsta Berling, Garbos breakthrough film with Stiller.)

A year after The Divine Woman, Garbo starred in Love, an adaptation of Tolstoys Anna Karenina. Unlike many silent stars (including John Gilbert), Garbo made a successful transition to sound in Anna Christie (1930.)

She became MGMs highest-paid star, and was able to pick and choose her later roles: from historical figures like Swedens Queen Christina (1933) to literary heroines like Camille (1936.) In 1939s Ninotchka, she played a rare comedic role to further acclaim.

In 1941, aged just 36, Garbo retired from the screen. Several comeback projects were mooted but never materialised. She later moved to New York and was dubbed the worlds most famous recluse, though she travelled quite widely.

Garbo had lasting relationships with both men and women, but never married and preferred to live alone. She died in 1990, aged 84, at a New York hospital. Her entire estate amounting to about $32 million was left to her niece, Gray Reisfield.

Five years later, after a convoluted legal battle, Garbos ashes were interred near Stockholm.

It is my hope to reconstruct this film using photographs, set stills and silent film titles, Philip C. Riley writes in his introduction to the book. The film in its entirety may have differed from Gladys Ungers story to some degree, as Irving Thalberg had final approval. (For example, we know that the name of Garbos character, Marah, was later changed to Marianne.)

I had hoped for a more detailed commentary, and a greater number of pictures. Nonetheless, this book will certainly be of interest to Garbo fans, as well as those with an interest in silent movies and the romantic fiction of the era.

Garbo Forever website

The Divine Womanon Flickr

Garbo by David Robinson

Greta Garbo Signature Collection on DVD

BearManor Media

My tribute to Harper Lee – author ofTo Kill a Mockingbird – is posted today at For Books’ Sake.

This year marks the 5oth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death. Of the many books that will be published about the legendary star in coming months, Michelle Morgan‘s fully revised and updated biography,Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed, will surely rank among the finest. You can read my review over at For Books’ Sake.

I consider the enduring appeal – and surrounding controversy – of I Know What the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou‘s 1969 memoir of her childhood in the Deep South of America, over at For Books’ Sake

Nina Mae McKinney, who made her screen dbut in King Vidors Hallelujah! (1929) one of the first Hollywood films to feature an all-black cast was hailed by MGMs Irving Thalberg as the greatest acting discovery of the age.

A vivacious beauty, Nina Mae had more in common with It Girl Clara Bow or glamorous comedienne Carole Lombard than with the enigmatic Greta Garbo, to whom she was compared.

But like many other black actresses of her generation, McKinney was reduced to playing bit parts and never fulfilled her initial promise. Her subsequent career included roles in race movies (films made outside Hollywood, for black audiences) and cabaret success in Europe.

The British film historian, Stephen Bourne, who has previously written about other black female stars of the early twentieth century including Ethel Waters and Butterfly McQueen has now investigated the life and work of Nina Mae McKinney in his latest book, The Black Garbo.

She was born in Lancaster, South Carolina in 1912. Her parents were among many black Southerners who migrated to New York, while the young Nina Mae was raised by her great-aunt. She came to the Big Apple as a teenager, and before long had joined the chorus line of a hit Broadway show.

It was there that she was spotted by King Vidor, the Texan-born director of silent classics like The Big Parade and The Crowd. She was third from right in the chorus, Vidor said of Nina. She was beautiful and talented and glowing with personality.

16 year-old McKinney was a last-minute replacement for singer Honey Brown in Vidors first sound picture, Hallelujah! She played Chick, a dancer and streetwise hussy of ill-repute, who seduces the sharecropper hero, Zeke (Daniel L. Haynes.)

As Chick in 'Hallelujah!' (1929)

Hallelujah! was considered so risky that MGM insisted Vidor invest his own salary in its production. Although marred by racial stereotyping, it was praised by critic

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