The Real Garbo

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17953, 3 December 1932, Page 10

The Real Garbo

WHAT is Greta Garbo’s secret of her great attraction, even for those who are not among her thick-and-thin, entirely uncritical, idolaters on the screen? asks a London film critic.

Hero is a striking portrait of the real Greta Garbo as painted by Edmund Golding, the British director who has been in close touch with her over “Grand Hotel,” her latest picture. She is really a recluse by nature. She is, in a sense, sub-normal. She lives for her work. She does more in eight hours at the “set” than others would do in Hi. And then she goes home and worries about it. She has that “infinite capacity for taking pains” which is an accompaniment, though not, as Carlyle would seem to imply, a source of genius. She is easy to work with; you have to approach her in the right way, but she is not “temperamental,” like some or most of the stars. She studies every detail and labors whole-heartedly 1o got it right. If, outside her work, she seems aloof, it is because she is simply and sincerely devoted to that alone. Of course, in spite of its illuminating interest as a, portrait from an authentic source, that is not a full explanation of Miss Garbo’s “secret.” It is imposiblc to explain personality, that rare individual something which no toiling nor spinning can create, and of which such amazing singloness o*f purpose is but Ope symptom or item of evidence.