Movie Reviewed: The Garden of Allah, by Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer
The story of two troubled souls
Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer spread their thick accents over a richly Technicolor desert in this extravagance Hollywood hokum. Dietrich plays a disenchanted socialite seeking God and Boyer plays the role of monk fleeing a Trappist monastery in order to seek the pleasures of the flesh. The two troubled souls appeared to be rescued when they meet and fall in love in Algeria. Initially he keeps his story a secret and later when she comes to know about his past, they breakup and he returns the monastery. Others who interact in their lives are a jealous sheikh (Basil Rathbone), a sand diviner (John Carradine), a handsome legionnaire (Alan Marshall) and a devoted servant (Joseph Schildkraut). Philosophically this is banal but the screenplay by W.P. Lipscomb offered a mixture of purity and eroticism. The quality of David O Selznick's production is found in the Oscar winning color cinematography by William Howard Greene and Harold Rosson. The film was budgeted at $1.6 million but it was over by $370,000 eventually making a loss in the box-office on this Selznick's proud production.
No comments:
Post a Comment