One of the movies that I had to chance to record during 31 Days of Oscar back in April is one that got nominations for its lead actress and its director, but one that gets fairly little attention nowadays: Romance. To be fair, I think it's with good reason that it's gon relatively forgotten.
The movie starts off with an establishing scene in the present day, that being 1930. Young Harry (Elliott Nugent) comes rushing in on New Year's Eve to see his grandfather, Rev. Tom Armstrong (Gavin Gordon, who in real life was five years younger than Nugent, although it makes sense when you watch the movie). Harry has fallen in love with an actress and is thinking of marrying her, but his parents are none too pleased, since she's clearly of the wrong social class. Grandpa looks in a small wooden box he keeps, and pulls out a handkerchief that clearly must have been scented at some point in the past, and tells his own story....
Flash back to some point around 1880 or so, when Tom was a young man just starting off in the ministry. He attends a party given by family friends the Van Tuyls, with father Cornelius (Lewis Stone) and adult daughter Susan (Florence Lake), who would be right for young Tom, a match made in heaven for the two families. However, another of the party attendees is opera singer Rita Cavallini (Greta Garbo). Since Harry is in love with an actress, we just know that Tom is going to fall in love with Rita. Also, since Grandpa has that faded handkerchief in the establishing scene, we know that the romance isn't going to work out, but we still have another hour or so to get there.
Well, actually, only about 40 minutes. Rev. Tom does indeed fall in love with Rita, and the feeling seems to be mutual as the two have a whirlwind winter romance set against the backdrop of some very obvious rear-projection photography. Obviously, Tom's family doesn't like this, and his Aunt Abigail (Clara Blandick) disapproves. More worryingly are the rumors that Rita is in fact Cornelius' mistress. Cornelius has been lying to Tom about it because he doesn't want to hurt Tom's feelings. But soon enough, the truth will come out.
The problem is, this comes out about 45 minutes into what is a 75-minute movie. After Tom learns the shocking truth, he still holds a candle for Rita, while she starts moping and claiming that she's going to be unable to sing at what is supposed to be her final American performance before returning to Europe. Worse, Tom is at the performance and wants to see Rita after the show to try to save her soul!
I called Romance a romantic comedy in the title of the thread. The romance part is obvious. The comedy, maybe not so much. But I found myself laughing during the final half hour in part because the script gets increasingly ridiculous, and in part because Garbo goes increasingly over the top. Romance was clearly intended to be more tragic, and with no comedy, but for me, that's not the way it turned out at all.
Then again, it doesn't help that Romance is the sort of movie that hasn't aged well. Perhaps audiences of the day would have been more amenable to it. Hollywood was still trying to figure out which stars were right for talking pictures, and the production here is nowhere near as stagy as films from even just a few months earlier were. So if you like Greta Garbo, you may find Romance interesting. The last I checked, it's available on a Warner Archive DVD.
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