The Garden of Allah
Page Two

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH

Color becomes a thrilling thing on the screen in "The Garden of Allah." For the first time, color is dramatic, rather than merely decorative. The moods as well as the manners of the characters are caught and held in glowing beauty; the desert and bazaar scenes are no colored postcards, but actual places; Madame Nature for once is not maligned, but glorified, with skies and sunsets and sand dunes to make you melt. And speaking of meltingly lovely things, Miss Dietrich's first color close-up will awe you for its exquisite tones. Marlene is not always perfectly happy in Technicolor, particularly outdoors; and she pursues her regrettable policy of facing the audience rather than her fellow players in all her best scenes—if only she'd concentrate on characterization instead of close-ups, for a change! At that, it is by far her most human and warm performance. It is Charles Boyer, however, who steals all available acting honors with his fine, sensitive, and spiritual portrait of the Trappist monk struggling against his love for Marlene. Boyer's long close-up in which he tells of his torments is remarkably moving—a great actor, here. Tilly Losch, the dancer, makes a triumphant screen debut. Basil Rathbone, C. Aubrey Smith, fine.

—Delight Evans, Screenland, January 1937

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH

The Technicolor version of the Robert Hichens novel, a best seller of several generations ago, is by far the most beautiful of the color pictures. Never on stage or screen have you seen anything so breathtakingly lovely as the silhouettes of desert caravans against the rising and the setting sun. Marlene Dietrich is certainly one of the Glamour Girls who takes to color like a duck to water. The glamorous Marlene is simply ravishing in her close-ups, and her reddish gold hair, clear blue eyes, and perfect profile make her the most beautiful of the stars yet to be seen in technicolor. Co-starring with Marlene is Charles Boyer, the handsome French actor who has a devastating appeal to women.

The story, alas, is not nearly so exciting as the color and the stars. As you probably remember, it's about a Trappist monk who breaks his solemn vows to the Church and runs away from his monastery in Northern Africa to see the world. In a nearby desert town he meets and marries a young woman who has also just escaped from a life of repression. The monk is continually haunted by his broken vows, and this secret gradually becomes a definite barrier between them. Finally he confesses to her what he has done, renounces his love and worldly delights, and returns to his monastery to seek again a peace of soul. No matter how beautiful the color and Marlene, it is still the story of the renegade monk. A pictorial highlight of the picture is the dance sequence of Tilly Losch. Also in the cast, and excellent, are Joseph Schildkraut as a poetic desert courier, Basil Rathbone as Count Anteoni, and Lucile Watson as a mother superior.

GARDEN OF ALLAH

Since life and art are progressive, some day, soon, a story sturdy enough to hold up in black and white will, when coupled with the Technicolor, combine into socko b.o. It resolves itself down all over again, in color cinematurgy or in the normal screen hues, that it's the story first. The rest are merely production niceties to enhance and embellish but never sufficient to sustain on their own. Accordingly 'Garden of Allah,' sumptuously and impressively mounted by David O. Selznick, impresses as the last word in color production, but a pretty dull affair. It'll come out all right chiefly on the ballyhoo and the marquee values of the stellar pair, Dietrich and Boyer. Especially for the matinee trade.

The b.o. answer finds itself in perhaps the No. 1 feature money-maker in color, 'Trail of the Lonesome Pine,' to date, where the prismatic camera enhancement had the advantage of a romance which, despite its backwoods familiarity, could almost stand up in ordinary black and white camera treatment.

Selznick's 'Garden of Allah' is the last word in coloring. It is optically arresting and betimes emotionally gripping but, after a spell, the ecclesiastic significance of the Trappist monk whose earthly love cannot usurp his prior secular vows peters out completely.

After their romantic safari into the Sahara—when the French captain and the count learn of Boyer's desertion from the monastery—the renunciation of earthly emotions, as Miss Dietrich escorts the monk back to sanctuary, somehow misses fire. It doesn't click emotionally; it's vapid, its romanticism, once the premise is established; and irises-out on an impression of the sands of the desert which have grown cold 20 minutes before the final camera portrait shot.

The cinematic portraiture combines with the expert trouping of the stellar twain in bolstering the proceedings, but not quite enough.

As a motion picture, the screen is asked too much of. The demands to reflect emotions into satisfying film drama are almost beyond the medium. In literature, Hichens' novel could word-paint something which neither the lens—on the face of it a more advantageous medium—nor the screen artificers could achieve.

Miss Dietrich and Charles Boyer are more than adequately competent in the leads although sometimes slurring their lines. But in the main they impress in the difficult roles. The support is likewise ultra. Basil Rathbone, C. Aubrey Smith, Tilly Losch (making her screen debut in a Bagdad cafe dancing sequence, and okay in what she does), Joseph Schildkraut (who almost steals the picture with his exaggerated oriental ingratiations) and John Carradine as the sandseer leave nothing wanting. The color is particularly flattering to Miss Dietrich who has also taken off a little weight. In the flowing capes to which she is so partial, the color camera has caught her at her photographic best.

Running time of 80 minutes, while not abnormal, appears longer, which is invariably a tip-off on calibre of script and direction. Yet Boleslawski has done an expert technical job in motivating the action and the Lipscomb-Riggs continuity has been wisely sparing of dialog. Which leaves the impression that the 'action,' such as it is, isn't sufficiently actionful. Shots and more shots of the desert, silhouettes against sunsets, caravanseries into the Garden of Allah (as the Arabs call the Sahara), bivouacked Bedouins, et al. do not make for cinematurgy. It's good incidental by-play, but that's all.

Nor is Boyer's struggle between worldly pursuits and his return to Trappist celibacy any great stirring premise, save for the femmes. 'Garden of Allah' as matinee fodder thus impresses favorably, which in one aspect augurs well for its box-office.

Max Steiner's score is second only to the gorgeous color cameraing, among the major contributory aspects. His music has really been called upon to collaborate with the histrrionism in pitching the emotions, and he achieves it in no small measure. Lansing C. Holden's color direction and the W. Howard Green-Hal Rossen cinematographic collaboration more than fulfill requirements from the lens adjunct which, in a production of this nature, is no small component.

Abel.