Camille

Next to Greta Garbo's sound classic version and not counting filmed productions of La Traviata, the best known filmed version Alexander Dumas's story Camille is this 1921 version that starred the great Russian actress, Alla Nazimova. But what was more important is that a lot of film fans got their first glimpse of another legend in Rudolph Valentino. In the same year of 1921 Rudy also got his career making role in The Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse. Together with Camille where he played Armand Duval assured his career and who would have known there would only be five more years.

This version only runs 70 minutes and I've got to wonder whether the folks at Metro Pictures left a lot on the cutting room floor. Though Valentino and Nazimova were great as were the rest of the cast, I have to wonder that there's a whole lot more that was made.

Nazimova is a whole lot less subtle in her acting than Greta Garbo, still she carries the part well. Valentino however is as perfect as Robert Taylor in the sound version. It's a role that calls for one to be callow, bumptious, and terribly sincere all at the same time. Both Taylor and Valentino had the delicacy of features to carry it off. And I've heard Valentino's speaking voice and I think he could have done this in sound as well.

We may yet get another version of Camille, but I can't imagine who among today's players could play either Marguerite Gauthier and Armand Duval with the same earnestness.

Although the 1921 silent version of "Camille" will not eclipse the later Garbo vehicle, the earlier film is an unexpectedly entertaining movie in its own right. The Dumas story was updated to the post World War I era and starred Alla Nazimova as the tragic Lady of the Camellias. Physically, Nazimova fails to convince viewers that she could lure young men into her clutches or coax a rich suitor to cross her palm with a jewel for her favors. However, she plays Camille in the grand style of the era, and, had she lived, she would have been a fine Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard." Two years after "Camille," the 44-year-old Nazimova played the teen-aged "Salome," the role that Norma Desmond wrote for herself as a comeback vehicle. The Nazimova version offers a glimpse of what the Norma Desmond film might have been.

As in "Salome," Nazimova's hair, costumes, and gestures in "Camille" compensate for her lack of physical allure, and the audience eventually accepts that a Rudolph Valentino would succumb to her charms. However, Valentino, does not register here either physically or emotionally with the appeal that he would exhibit in later films.

Natacha Rambova, who was Mrs. Valentino, designed the costumes and sets, which often add a striking dimension to the film. The unusual designs are reminiscent of the Aubrey-Beardsley-inspired work on Nazimova's "Salome." Although the overall direction of "Camille" is competent, if not exciting, the story is well paced. While certainly not an example of the silent cinema at its artistic peak or even a typical commercial film of the era, "Camille" offers a star turn by one of the era's more eccentric actresses and an early look at one of the great male stars of the 1920's.

For more than two decades I have been a journalist, with extensive experience writing about historic Hollywood. Along the way, I have read much about this movie: about how horrible it was, the critical reception (quite unpleasant), how it ruined careers, etc.

Last night I finally had the chance to see the beautifully restored version on Turner Classic Movies.

I cannot speak for the world of 1921 (being much too young, of course), but this movie must rank up there with one of the top ten films of the silent era. The acting, while not perfect, exhibits little of the hamminess and showiness that earmarks the typical 1920s silent. Nazimova is spectacular in her performance of the dying woman of ill repute. The design elements are tremendous -- especially considering how unique they were in their time. Beautifully realized sets, costumes, props, etc.

Other versions of this movie have been made before and since, but this version far outweighs the more familiar version with GG (next to whose photograph the word "hamminess" appears in the dictionary).

The only downside to this otherwise marvelous film is the appearance by Valentino -- whose popularity must have been a product of the times, as I still cannot fathom how he ever got more than a bit part in a Hollywood film.

Of special note are the French flashbacks that pop up throughout the film. They bring a special poignance to the finale that is especially touching.

This version of Camille features Nazimova as the courtesan and Valentino as her young lover, Armand. It certainly makes for an excellent film and deserves to be viewed as an earlier rendition of the story that features a mature star opposite a rising one. I think it holds its own space next to the Garbo version, and both benefit by the comparison.

Valentino is subtle and intense, he gives a memorable performance and his presence is electric. He is much more expressive than Robert Taylor in the Garbo version. Nazimova must have been aware of his scenic power, as she chose to have him absent in the last scene, so we could concentrate on her death which was very well done. In general Nazimova tends to be over the top in the crowd scenes, but her solos or scenes with Valentino reveal subtlety and add depth to the interpretation. She is very convincing for example, in establishing the disease as a major feature in her character from the very beginning.

The story takes place in the present then 1920's and not in the 1840's. The designs for sets and dresses by Natasha Rambova are exquisite. We first see Camille at the top of a grand staircase in what we assume is the Opera, surrounded by admirers and wearing a grand gown, and wild hairstyle. The party at her house afterward is perfect in the decor and design, particularly the way we can see into her boudoir from the salon. The country scenes were beautiful as were the flashbacks into the story of Manon Lescaut, the book that is a gift from Armand, and which he reads to her in their idyllic moments, and that she will hold on to till the very end. It relates a similar life to hers in the 18th century, and we understand her predicament to be a recurring theme, as old and human as society itself. The interior scenes in the country however were too spartan and middle-class in style. And her dresses are also too plain. We find it hard to believe Marguerite could have spend so much and get so little. It does seem a perfect environment though, for Armand's conventional and small- minded father, who looks like Napoleon III in his commanding incarnation of bourgeois morality.

The gambling scene that marks her re-entry into her old life is one of the best in the film. The communication between Marguerite and Armand from across the room is as intense as if they were holding each other close. It must be seen to be understood, as no words can accurately describe the gamut of feelings rushing by the actors, it is precisely at these moments that we understand the art of the silent era, and Norma Desmond's comment in "Sunset Boulevard" :"We didn't need words, we had faces".

Valentino was still something of an unknown quantity when this film was made, and although it was adapted from the screen by his mentor June Mathis and designed by his wife Natasha Rambova, CAMILLE is not a Valentino film. It belongs instead to Alla Nazimova, whose eccentric charm that combined both frantic gaiety and an exhausted world-weariness made her the most highly regarded "high-art" performer of her day.

Surely by now every one knows at least the basic outline of the story, which French author Dumas drew from life: Marguerite Gautier (Nazimova) is a celebrated courtesan who despises her life and yet cannot break free of it. When confronted with true love in the form of society youth Armand (Valentino), however, she attempts to leave her past behind--only to be convinced by her lover's father that if she really loves Armand she must leave him that he might take his rightful place in society. She returns to her old life, where she dies of consumption with her one true love's name upon her lips.

Nazimova, who is credited with introducing the Russian "method" to the New York stage, is an extremely interesting Camille. Unlike the later Garbo, she offers us a truly neurotic creature who in public screams with nervous energy--and then in private collapses under the twin weights of self-loathing and her increasing illness. At times her performance goes as far over the top as her hairstyle, but the cumulative result is exceptionally affecting. Valentino is typically Valentino, with an intriguing presence that relies more upon appearance than actual skill, and his performance adds no significant dimension to the part of Armand; this may, however, be an unfair criticism, for the role is notoriously thankless.

Rambova's strange set design for Marguerite's apartment is a highlight of the film and worth studying, very 1920s modern and yet still far advanced of anything commonly seen in even contemporary decor, and the cinematography gives CAMILLE an effectively lyrical feel. All in all, the film might best be considered as a high-art experiment that does not entirely come off, but even so it gives us the opportunity to see Nazimov near the height of her appeal, and as such is recommended to all silent film fans.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer