Anna Christie
About Anna Christie
Chris Christofferson (George F. Marion), skipper of a coal barge, gets a letter from his daughter Anna (Greta Garbo), whom he sent to relatives in Minnesota and has not seen since she was a child. She arrives in New York with a past she hides, including work in a brothel. Chris pulls Matt Burke (Charles Bickford) and two other sailors out of the sea. Anna and Matt fall in love. When Matt proposes, she tells him and her father what she has been. Marie Dressler plays Marthy Owens.
Cast & crew
More about Anna Christie
Clarence Brown directed and produced, with Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg. Frances Marion adapted Eugene O'Neill's 1921 play. William H. Daniels photographed it. Hugh Wynn edited. MGM released it on 21 February 1930. It runs 89 minutes. The books list a cost of $376,000, a United States and Canada gross of $1,013,000, $486,000 elsewhere, a worldwide gross of $1,499,000, and a profit of $576,000. Marion had played Chris on Broadway and in the 1923 film. MGM shot a German-language version the same year, directed by Jacques Feyder, again with Garbo.
Themes
Making
Brown kept Marion, who had played Chris on stage, and built the sound film around Garbo's first speaking part.
Reviews
Mordaunt Hall, in The New York Times, wrote that Garbo was more interesting heard than she had been in silent films and that she showed no nervousness at the microphone. Variety called it a wow picture. Film Daily called her performance superb.
Look
William H. Daniels photographed Garbo in the bar and on Chris's barge. The work was nominated for the cinematography Oscar.
Preservation
The English-language film survives. The German-language version also survives.
Notes
- Nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography. Garbo's Best Actress nomination covered this film and Romance.
- Garbo's first spoken line in the picture is 'Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby!'
- In the German version her first line is 'Whisky – aber nicht zu knapp!' Theo Shall plays Matt, Hans Junkermann plays Chris, and Salka Viertel plays Marthy.
- The German version was shot at MGM in July and August 1930 and survives.
- James T. Mack plays Johnny the Harp. Lee Phelps plays Larry.
- It opened at the Capitol Theatre in New York and set house records in its first two weeks.
Scenes
- Anna orders a whisky at the bar, her first line in a Garbo talkie.
- Chris hauls Matt Burke out of the water.
- She tells Matt and her father about the brothel.
Influenced by
- Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill (1921)
Quotes
Gimme a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby!
