Queen Christina

This early talkie classic casts Greta Garbo as the peerless Queen Christina, a princess who comes to the Swedish throne at a very early age when her father King Gustavus is killed on the battlefield during the Thirty Years war. Brought up as a male heir, Christina becomes a powerful and accomplished orator, a hero to her people and a good-humoured, intelligent and outspoken idealist ahead of her time. She's mindful of the war's mounting casualties and financial cost and wants to end it despite her glory-hungry nobles clamouring for more bloodshed. And as if this weren't enough, her people are also pushing her to marry the Swedish war hero Prince Karl, eager for her to produce a rightful heir - something she has no intention of doing.

Queen Christina takes an intriguing slice of European history and turns it into something of a fairy tale. Through this world of court intrigues and treaties we're memorably introduced to Garbo as a serious-looking monarch flanked by massive hunting dogs. She's a larger-than-life presence, remarking "I have so little free time, to spend it sleeping is a waste" as she devours volumes of reading in her bedchamber. She's already enjoyed a series of affairs with members of her court at her own whim but doesn't believe in true love. When she tires of the pressures of her life she masquerades as a swaggering lad in order to travel incognito across the countryside by horse, and it's while she's out riding in the snow that she meets Antonio (John Gilbert), a Spanish envoy on his way to see the Queen. The two cross paths again in a hospitable inn where they enjoy each other's intellectual companionship, and when Christina reveals her gender they embark on a night of unforgettable passion and fall in love - a love that is too good to be true.

This section of the film lends itself to a Twelfth Night-ish comedy of misunderstanding based on disguises and sexual suggestion. The film then introduces a fatal complication - when Antonio learns who Christina really is it puts him at conflict with his mission to Sweden. Furthermore, when Christina begins to flaunt her relationship with Antonio it angers her people - they want a Swedish king, not a Spanish one. Queen Christina finds herself in an unfortunate position, she must choose between her own happiness and what her country wants. Either path is marked with tragedy, and the film certainly doesn't opt for the easiest way out.

Queen Christina is full of opulent sets and grandly recreates a historical era to great effect. The real Queen Christina was allegedly uninterested in men, and not very good-looking. There are more than a few allusions to the Queen's unorthodox sexuality in this film, though it can perhaps be forgiven for it's overall historical inaccuracy as it doesn't really set out to take a documentarian approach to history. It's a bit more fabulous than that (and I mean that in the most literary sense, IE. Pertaining to fables), and the final enigmatic shot of Queen Christina's face is one of the great close-ups in film history. Garbo holds onto that look of deep thought and ambivalence so perfectly that it's easy to see why she was such a star.

DIRECTOR: Rouben Mamoulian
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by H. M Harwood, Salka Viertel and S. N. Behrman. Some of the story was also contributed to by Margaret P. Levino. Loosely based on 17th century historical events and real life historical figures.
KEY ACTORS: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, C. Aubrey Smith

RELATED TEXTS:
- The Abdication is a more accurate film about the life of Queen Christina, starring Peter Finch and Liv Ullmann.
- The more recent films Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age tell a similar story of a female monarch refusing to bow to the pressures of their courts.