Early exposure to George Cukor’s work has proven more appealing than I would have initially expected. Here, he takes the (now, anyway) common storyline of a woman’s choice between a man who loves her for who she is (indeed, despite it in some instances), and the cold-but-wealthy aristocrat who can provide physical comforts, but nothing other than emptiness otherwise. The woman, Marguerite, is played by an excellent Greta Garbo, who really may be the most unique classic Hollywood actress with her Eastern-European aura: her background gives her a range not enjoyed by some of the other greats, even if I’m  partial to Joan Crawford and Lauren Bacall. Her male options in Camille are romantic dreamer Armand Duval (Robert Taylor) and stodgy Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell), and as a fun-loving woman-of-stature whose health is increasingly failing, she has a legitimately tough call to make, especially when Armond’s father Monsieur Duval (Lionel Barrymore) enters the picture, muddling her mindset further. The first half is a bit slow and occasionally corny, but the second half, where Marguerite finds herself forced to make decisions instead of coyly putting them off, really picks up. The ending is very moving, something I wouldn’t have predicted early on, and rings true despite the fluctuations in emotional loyalties.

62/100