Bali Dancer

I hadn't seen Garbo's Mata Hari (1931), and I don't know why. Never had the opportunity? Anyway, it is great.

It stars Ramon Novarro as a Russian flyer during WWI. He lands in Paris after a dangerous flight over German lines. His superior, Lionel Barrymore, lets him come to a society party to see Mata Hari (Greta Garbo) dance. Like all the other men in Paris, he falls in love with her, and somehow he convinces her to let him take her home. There is a little seduction in her room, and we see him leave - and come right back.

But Mata is spying for the Germans, reporting to cruel spymaster Lewis Stone. He orders her to keep Novarro occupied while his men borrow and photograph his dispatches. He then flies back to Russia. But Mata is caught as a spy and Novarro crashes.

There's quite a bit more than this, but I want to skip ahead to the ending. Novarro is temporarily blinded, and Mata convinces to French police to deceive him. They tell him she is in a hospital, not a prison, and let him visit her one last time. When she is led off to be executed, he is told she is going for an operation, and she will be fine soon. It is intensely emotional.

The movie may seem a little ridiculous if you think about it at all. The Balinese dance that she performs in the beginning is not good, and censorship of the striptease makes it even worse. But Garbo has a way to make the least thing fascinating, and the prison scenes are a real triumph. Not her best work, I suppose, but more than good enough for me.