Mata-Hari

            

George Fitzmaurice's Mata Hari, from 1931, is one of the more turgid of MGM's vehicles for Greta Garbo. Garbo stars as the titular spy, but no effort was made to be historically accurate; which is a pity because it is quite a story. Four (listed) screenwriters concocted a hoary yarn with unmemorable dialogue. The espionage angle of the film is its weakest aspect, pure codswallop. What's left is your typical Garbo triangle with an older lover (Lionel Barrymore) and a younger one (Roman Novarro). Barrymore is pretty good as a wheezing donkey of male impotence. Novarro, born in Durango, is supposed to be playing a Russian flyer, but wisely doesn't attempt an accent. Though ridiculous in his role, he is good at shining his puppy love eyes at la Garbo. Garbo is great, natch, but I was disconcerted by her pronouncing the country, "Rush-ee-ah." Lewis Stone and Karen Morley are also good, but under utilized.

Classic Hollywood was often an echo chamber and Mata-Hari is a good example of this. It seems a response to Paramount's success with the exoticism of the Dietrich and Sternberg, nicking the cabaret sections from Morocco and the fatalistic spy shenanigans of Dishonored.

Mata-Hari, like Dishonored, ends with its heroine facing a firing squad. However, Fitzmaurice's static visual style is like flat beer compared to the bubbly champagne of Josef von Sternberg's play of light and shadow. This despite the striking work of cinematographer William Daniels whose credits include The Shop Around the Corner and many Garbo features. I did enjoy the wigged out costumes and Orientalist set designs, but their appeal is mainly to a camp sensibility. Garbo provokes more mystery when she turns her face into a mask, as during the finale of Queen Christina, than when she does a bump and grind around a pagan idol in a sheer outfit. Less is sometimes more. 

Nearly all copies of this film, including the Warners Archive disc I viewed, contain a truncated version of the film released after the institution of the Production code. A complete version has been found in Brussels with about three more minutes, mostly of Garbo shimmying lasciviously and seducing Novarro in a see-through negligee. Sounds great, but I don't think these sequences would ultimately redeem Mata-Hari. 

A mugshot of the real Mata-Hari