Being an AFI movie buff for several years, I memorized one quote long before watching the film. It was the second entry in the list of the 400 nominated quotes (from "Anna Christie", right after 'All-righty-then' from "Ace Ventura"): "Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side and don't be stingy, baby".
Each word flows as smoothly as the other, creating the kind of kitchen-sink poetry that works almost instantly without even the luxury of a context, yet the context is what makes that single line so legendary. Those were (and you probably know it already) the first words spoken by Greta Garbo on screen; in fact, the very tag-line (and publicity) of the film was "Garbo talks!" and no, they're not the first words spoken in the film as Clarence Brown keeps us almost twenty minutes in the waiting before the queen of the screen makes her long awaited arrival, the first since the talkies.
But these minutes are rather well-spent in the company of George F. Marion as the drunken barge captain Chris Christopherson and his boozy companion Marthy played by the incomparable Marthe Dressler, the Hollywood queen of ordinary, homely and ugly mugs. Together they drink, argue, have another drink, with the nonchalant rythme that Brel would translate into the furious tempo of 'Port of Amsterdam'. Amsterdam is still too glamorous for the film setting: one of these ports embedded in perpetual shadows and fogs where sailors drown their sorrow and lost memories in booze.
Chris is a solitary man who's left his wife and daughter, and Marthy is what we would call a tramp, both faces carry the mark of old age and both drink and laugh with the genuine spontaneity of losers who don't even feel sore about it. And what else about the 'whiskey' line is that it would be expected from another low-life barfly, not the most gracious face that ever illuminated the screen. That it's Garbo's mouth uttering these words is so anticlimactic that it took a few seconds for audiences to digest them and then react with thundering cheers and applauses. So for these thirteen words only, the film was legend material. Now, let's get back to it.
When Chris and Marthy go to the local pub, one that has a specific ladies' entrance, Chris had just received a letter from his daughter Anna, and speaks about her in very high terms: she's a nurse or a governess in Minnesota, who did well for a girl who lost her mother at the age of five. Marthy is good sport about Anna's arrival and not only accepts to leave the house but also to get off the picture for a little while, understanding that she'd outstayed her welcome and became a liability as far as Chris' image goes. But Anna's entrance and order changes it all: Marthy understands that the two have in common a shattered past that justify such a choice of drinks: no martini, no tea, but a whisky and a ginger ale that would never serve. If Anna is a nurse, then Marthy is the First Lady.
The film is prude enough not to mention the past except in vague terms but we're mature enough to figure it out. In ports living under the haunts of fog, it's much easier to keep a past secret, the catch is that it leaves the future uncertain. But the air and fragrance of the sea, that old devil according to Chris, does good for the spirit of Anna who finds her energy revitalized and seems to retrieve some balance with the old fool, that until the old devil brings a newcomer. His name is Mat, he's a beefy Irishman, strong as an ox and speaking so loud Chris immediately shrinks in his presence and get as a frail as frog. Mat is played by Charles Bickford.
It doesn't take long for the two to fall in love and for Anna to understand that this is one love built on lies. Garbo is the living embodiment of doomed romances, before Ingrid Bergman, she knew how to make that forced gaiety and genuine tears inhabit her characters, women in love with wrong persons. But Anna Christie is the 'wrong' person that time and a lie is a pernicious venom, for even in love, she'd be alone in her own conscience, letting her soul drifting secretly while her gracious figurehead is what attracted Matt. It all comes down to her plea for a second chance, but that can't do without revealing her past, that past she kept hiding not to further plunge her father in an ocean of guilt.
The fllm was adapted from a play by Eugene O'Neil and seems to take place in a time before the prohibition, it's rather conventional and is full of stagey and melodramatic moments but it's sublimated by the figure of Anna who discharged her past into the sea until it splashed all over her conscience. Some scenes are extremely poignant like in the amusement park scene when she pretends she doesn't know Marthy. This is a woman who're not ashamed of her past because she was a victim after all and yet lives in world where she's controlled by opposing waters: men, reputation, booze, you name them.
Directed by Clarence Brown, the film might have inspired "Port of Shadows" a milestone of French cinema with Jean Gabin playing an army deserter and Michelle Morgan a girl with a troubled past. There's immanent poetry and impending fatality in ports and sea, you can board a ship and have a second life, or you can anchor yourself but memories have their tides and come back to haunt you. The film ends on a happy ending that seems rather forced and never leaves us confident that some gloom won't come to haunt Anna's back.
The one thing to be confident about was that the film ensured her second career in the movies, as she proved she was more than a face.
Each word flows as smoothly as the other, creating the kind of kitchen-sink poetry that works almost instantly without even the luxury of a context, yet the context is what makes that single line so legendary. Those were (and you probably know it already) the first words spoken by Greta Garbo on screen; in fact, the very tag-line (and publicity) of the film was "Garbo talks!" and no, they're not the first words spoken in the film as Clarence Brown keeps us almost twenty minutes in the waiting before the queen of the screen makes her long awaited arrival, the first since the talkies.
But these minutes are rather well-spent in the company of George F. Marion as the drunken barge captain Chris Christopherson and his boozy companion Marthy played by the incomparable Marthe Dressler, the Hollywood queen of ordinary, homely and ugly mugs. Together they drink, argue, have another drink, with the nonchalant rythme that Brel would translate into the furious tempo of 'Port of Amsterdam'. Amsterdam is still too glamorous for the film setting: one of these ports embedded in perpetual shadows and fogs where sailors drown their sorrow and lost memories in booze.
Chris is a solitary man who's left his wife and daughter, and Marthy is what we would call a tramp, both faces carry the mark of old age and both drink and laugh with the genuine spontaneity of losers who don't even feel sore about it. And what else about the 'whiskey' line is that it would be expected from another low-life barfly, not the most gracious face that ever illuminated the screen. That it's Garbo's mouth uttering these words is so anticlimactic that it took a few seconds for audiences to digest them and then react with thundering cheers and applauses. So for these thirteen words only, the film was legend material. Now, let's get back to it.
When Chris and Marthy go to the local pub, one that has a specific ladies' entrance, Chris had just received a letter from his daughter Anna, and speaks about her in very high terms: she's a nurse or a governess in Minnesota, who did well for a girl who lost her mother at the age of five. Marthy is good sport about Anna's arrival and not only accepts to leave the house but also to get off the picture for a little while, understanding that she'd outstayed her welcome and became a liability as far as Chris' image goes. But Anna's entrance and order changes it all: Marthy understands that the two have in common a shattered past that justify such a choice of drinks: no martini, no tea, but a whisky and a ginger ale that would never serve. If Anna is a nurse, then Marthy is the First Lady.
The film is prude enough not to mention the past except in vague terms but we're mature enough to figure it out. In ports living under the haunts of fog, it's much easier to keep a past secret, the catch is that it leaves the future uncertain. But the air and fragrance of the sea, that old devil according to Chris, does good for the spirit of Anna who finds her energy revitalized and seems to retrieve some balance with the old fool, that until the old devil brings a newcomer. His name is Mat, he's a beefy Irishman, strong as an ox and speaking so loud Chris immediately shrinks in his presence and get as a frail as frog. Mat is played by Charles Bickford.
It doesn't take long for the two to fall in love and for Anna to understand that this is one love built on lies. Garbo is the living embodiment of doomed romances, before Ingrid Bergman, she knew how to make that forced gaiety and genuine tears inhabit her characters, women in love with wrong persons. But Anna Christie is the 'wrong' person that time and a lie is a pernicious venom, for even in love, she'd be alone in her own conscience, letting her soul drifting secretly while her gracious figurehead is what attracted Matt. It all comes down to her plea for a second chance, but that can't do without revealing her past, that past she kept hiding not to further plunge her father in an ocean of guilt.
The fllm was adapted from a play by Eugene O'Neil and seems to take place in a time before the prohibition, it's rather conventional and is full of stagey and melodramatic moments but it's sublimated by the figure of Anna who discharged her past into the sea until it splashed all over her conscience. Some scenes are extremely poignant like in the amusement park scene when she pretends she doesn't know Marthy. This is a woman who're not ashamed of her past because she was a victim after all and yet lives in world where she's controlled by opposing waters: men, reputation, booze, you name them.
Directed by Clarence Brown, the film might have inspired "Port of Shadows" a milestone of French cinema with Jean Gabin playing an army deserter and Michelle Morgan a girl with a troubled past. There's immanent poetry and impending fatality in ports and sea, you can board a ship and have a second life, or you can anchor yourself but memories have their tides and come back to haunt you. The film ends on a happy ending that seems rather forced and never leaves us confident that some gloom won't come to haunt Anna's back.
The one thing to be confident about was that the film ensured her second career in the movies, as she proved she was more than a face.