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25 out of 29 people found the following review useful: Love & Destiny in the Sahara, 20 February 2000 Author: Ron Oliver (revilorest@juno.com) from Forest Ranch, CA
North Africa in the 1930's. To a small Arab town on the edge of the Sahara comes a beautiful woman looking for meaning to her life & a handsome Trappist monk fleeing from his crisis of faith. They will meet and passions will be stirred, but not even the Sand Diviner knows if they will find happiness or sorrow, here, in THE GARDEN OF ALLAH.The plot is pure hokum, but the film is still great fun & beautiful to look at. Marlene Dietrich & Charles Boyer are a superb screen couple. She is, to put it simply, gorgeous, and Boyer gives a most effective, understated performance, letting his sensitive face do much of the acting for him. (Dietrich had wanted her lover, John Gilbert, to have the leading male role, and he had gone so far as to have color tests made, but he died unexpectedly before shooting could begin.)The supporting cast is excellent: Basil Rathbone, in a sympathetic role as a Count who loves the desert; Joseph Schildkraut as a friendly, talkative guide (all the "Arabic" he & others speak in the film is pure gibberish); Lucile Watson as a gentle Mother Superior; Alan Marshal as an honorable young French officer; Tilly Losch as a dangerous dancer; Henry Brandon as a comic porter; John Carradine as the mysterious Sand Diviner; and magnificent Sir C. Aubrey Smith as a wise old priest.Movie mavens will recognize Helen Jerome Eddy as a nun; Marcia Mae Jones & Bonita Granville (peeking over the nun's shoulder) as convent girls; gaunt Nigel De Brulier as a monastery lector; and Ferdinand Gottschalk as a hotel clerk, all uncredited.Color films of the 1930's are both rare & lovely to look at, and this movie is no exception - the cinematography is as colorful as the desert itself. THE GARDEN OF ALLAH was the first Technicolor film to be shot on location. Yuma, Arizona gave the film makers all the sand dunes they could desire, but contaminated drinking water & 135 degree heat soon had the company in revolt. When the daily rushes showed Boyer's face had burned a bright tomato red, producer David O. Selznick finally gave in. The remainder of the film was shot on a Hollywood sound stage.
22 out of 24 people found the following review useful: Beautiful to See and Hear, but that's all, 31 March 2003 Author: John O'Grady from Lansing, Michigan
This is, I believe, only the second movie to be made in the gloriously new three-strip Technicolor process, and it must be said that cinematographer Howard Greene and Selznick's always reliable crew of art directors turned in a stunning performance. At a time when color was not well understood by most technicians, these guys pulled off a virtuoso turn. The thing looks fabulous from end to end; lovely desert shots under all kinds of lighting conditions, and a generally underplayed and painterly use of color.Then there is the music: one of Max Steiner's most magical scores, although unfortunately renters of the video will not quite be able to appreciate it as it deserves to be. Max wrote nearly two hours of music for what turned out to be a 79 minute picture; a good deal of it was lost and Selznick's sound engineers had a tendency to mix it under in such a way that its distinctiveness is much muted. This problem is exacerbated in the usually reliable Anchor Bay's VHS issue; they went overboard with the noise reduction filters and the result in many places is a blurry mush that does scant justice to Steiner's often piquant scoring. (Later: In the DVD this has been largely rectified). Some of the best passages were left on the cutting room floor altogether... All of this visual and audible loveliness has been lavished on a story of truly astonishing triviality, which is a pity, as the Robert Hichens novel had rather more depth. (Count Antioni, for instance, is a converted Muslim in the book; but 1936 Hollywood would not tolerate that. Would they today, I wonder?) Marlene Dietrich has to be the only woman on earth who would wander about the uncharted depths of the Sahara in high heels and a Travis Banton silk confection of a gown; the most horrendous sandstorms fail to displace a single hair of her coiffure. Charles Boyer strives manfully with awful dialogue and almost brings it off. Second tier characters like Joseph Schildkraut and the ever stalwart C. Aubrey Smith fare better, and Basil Rathbone is always good to see. Tilly Losch's hoochie- koochie dance in the Arab dive is positively embarrassing. The whole thing was definitely a miscalculation on Selznick's part, and he lost a bundle. Nevertheless it is well worth a look if you are a student of early color. Film music aficionados will have to take my word for it on the superb qualities of the score; the existing movie barely hints at them. This music cries out for a good new recording, like the many others that are coming out these days of classic picture scores.
20 out of 26 people found the following review useful: Fabulous camp!, 8 October 2005 Author: hankochai from United States
I give this movie an A+ for the sheer camp of it! As Dietrich's daughter Maria Riva wrote in the book on her mother, "If one sees The Garden of Allah in the context of high camp, it can be very amusing." And how! I laughed with delight at the overwrought score and the astoundingly, ridiculously, fantastically melodramatic dialogue. Viewers who've read the accounts of Boyer's toupee (it kept coming unstuck in the heat) will snicker every time it makes an appearance.Dietrich and Boyer rarely look at each other when giving their lines -- instead they gaze dreamily off into the distance, presumably so their faces can be photographed at the best angle and with the most advantageous light (if you're starring in a turkey might as well look good!). Dietrich's costumes are out of this world. As Riva notes in her book, Dietrich managed to steal Paramount's Travis Banton and have him design some of the most divine gowns, such as the chiffon beige dress & cape.I heartily agree with the other reviewers who rave about the Technicolor. It really is hard to believe the film was done in 1936 -- the color is fantastic.In short, if you watch The Garden of Allah with a lenient attitude and embrace its silliness, you can't help but enjoy it.
12 out of 14 people found the following review useful: Dietrich and Boyer in Technicolor heaven..., 3 October 2006 Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.
Early Technicolor, subdued and with shadows playing over the wide stretches of sand and silk (Dietrich's wide array of costumes), is the real star of this desert opus that should fascinate any student of cinematography interested in exploring David O. Selznick's use of color a few years before GONE WITH THE WIND.MARLENE DIETRICH strikes some awesome poses and looks stunning in all of her close-ups and CHARLES BOYER is a suitably romantic figure as he copes with a secret unknown to her--he's a man hiding his past as a monk. She's searching for true love after a girlhood devoted to her sick father and Boyer seems to be the living embodiment of her ideal.It's all so unreal and yet it's hard to turn away from the gorgeous colors and not be drawn into the story. When things get too dull, there's always Basil Rathbone, Joseph Schildkraut and C. Aubrey Smith in the supporting cast to bring some added color to the tale.It's Technicolor heaven for Dietrich's fans and to top it all there's a nice Max Steiner score in the background. None of it can be taken seriously but it has its compensations from a visual standpoint.
12 out of 15 people found the following review useful: The Bottomless Trunk of Clothes!, 26 August 2005 Author: drednm
Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer give solid performances in this beautiful but empty film. The irony is that Dietrich plays a woman with a beautiful but empty life. Truly gorgeous cinematography and sets, and yes Dietrich's bottomless trunk of clothes are also fabulous. She look great; Boyer looks young and trim.Story of a woman seeking meaning and an ex-priest seeking life seems pretty stale, but set against such unreal sets and skies it somehow works, given the two stars, the terrific score by Max Steiner, and a good supporting cast. The film runs like 76 minutes and seems badly edited, plus certain characters just appear or disappear.Joseph Schildkraut is funny as the Arab guide, C. Aubrey Smith is the old priest, Lucile Watson the mother superior, Tilly Losch the dancer, John Carradine the diviner, and Basil Rathbone plays.... well I'm not sure. He just rides in from the desert and spoils everything! As others have noted, John Gilbert was slated to star with Dietrich. I can't help but think he would have been wonderful. The role of world-weary Boris would have suited the great Gilbert quite well. And after the success of Queen Christina (with Garbo), his career might have gotten back on track.I can't think of any other 30s film Dietrich did in color. She looks great and wears some terrific clothes. My favorite is the Valentino as The Shiek-like outfit she wears by the pool.Certainly worth a look for the lush sets and color and the two great stars.
8 out of 9 people found the following review useful: An unsexy Marlene can be dull - and a Selznick misfire in color, 26 April 2007 Author: theowinthrop from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
He's not recalled today like his two contemporaries Somerset Maugham or James Hilton. He is Robert Hitchens, and in his time (roughly from 1900 to 1947 or so) his books were frequently best sellers. Only one is recalled today - and it is not THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. His fictionalization of Oscar Wilde's career - THE GREEN CARNATION - is still republished occasionally. But SNAKEBITE, AFTER THE TRIAL, BELLA DONNA, and THE PARADINE CASE are rarely read (all four were made into films, and the last was a failed Hitchcock movie). He did have his own share of controversy. In 1923 the prosecution and Judge in the notorious British homicide trial of Edith Thompson and Frederick Byswater noted the imaginative Mrs. Thompson liked to discuss the books she read and mentioned Hitchens. Mr. Justice Shearman said Hitchens wrote filthy books. Coming from such a source that actually is a complement.Hitchens liked the desert as a setting of his tales. BELLA DONNA was set in Egypt in part, dealing with an archaeologist. So his novels are pretty much time capsules to us, reminding us of earlier viewpoints about the globe and what to find there.Today when we think of the world of North Africa and the Islamic countries I suspect we think of xenophobic anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Jewish peoples, or of suicide bombers, or of fanatics. Of course this is a gross simplification of the mass of these people. But similarly stereotypes ruled the view of Islamic lands in the 19th and early 20th Century. On the one hand was a look at the beauties of the desert and a sense of it's timelessness and it's mysticism. This was mingled with a view that Islam was a kind of poor cousin (for want of a better term) to Christianity, worshiping God but being somewhat more superstitious (although in fiction the superstition was usually correct in the ironies of the story). But on the other hand North Africa and the Middle East were seen as hot and sexy uninhibited areas. In novels like Andre Gide's THE IMMORALIST you went to North Africa to escape the hypocrisy of European society (similarly, Evelyn Waugh would send Sebastian to North Africa in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED to drink himself to death with his lover).Keeping all this in mind helps understand the misfire called THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. David Selznick produced it to use the new Technicolor style of film - and to give the film it's due Richard Boleslawski's movie is a beautiful one to look at. Further, he brought in Marlene Dietrich (who had already done a "desert" romance with Joseph Von Sternberg in 1930 - MOROCCO), Charles Boyer, Basil Rathbone, Joseph Schildkraut, C. Audrey Smith, Alan Marshall, and John Carridine for his cast. With all their hard work, though, and the beauty of the film itself, it remains a failure.The problem is the hokeyness of the story to us today. Hitchens sets up the lovers (Dietrich and Boyer - their only film together, by the way) on parallel courses. She was brought up in a Catholic school run by nuns in France, and her father (a rich man) has died leaving her his fortune. She has had a secluded life so far in the convent and caring for her father, and she yearns to see the world and find love. Boyer has been a Trappist monk, who earns the money for his monastery by being the sole possessor of the recipe for the manufacture of the monastery's liqueur. But at the start of the film he has fled the monastery and is traveling on the same train as she is. They both leave at a city thirty miles south of the monastery.At a fight in a nightspot both are at, Boyer rescues Dietrich. Soon they are seen together pretty frequently, and fall in love. He tries to leave but can't. Instead he proposes marriage and she accepts. The local priest (Aubrey Smith) does not know why but can't trust Boyer. A premonition by a seer (Carridine) that is told to Dietrich and Rathbone makes the latter equally wary about the marriage. But Dietrich is all for it. They go on their honeymoon (accompanied by their servants including Schildkraut). The keep staying in the desert apparently content, until the accidental arrival of Marshall begins undoing the entire situation: Marshall (a French army officer) met Boyer at the monastery, and knows his story.SPOILER AHEAD: When the matter reaches a boil, Dietrich and Boyer reluctantly return things to normal...or as near normal as possible. They tearfully part as Boyer returns to the Trappist life, and Dietrich hopes that in a better world they will be united forever.Somehow today we wouldn't swallow this too thoroughly. The monk might decide to drop his duty to the God he swore allegiance to because he does want to be a regular man. The woman who needs love would likewise urge him to do so, and the hell with the world. Instead we have this 1936 solution - and while the actors make the best of their talents bringing it to a boil it sits badly. Also, Marlene is a woman of vast sex appeal. While Selznick dressed her quite well here (and the color helped too), she does nothing sexy in the film. Dancer Tilly Losch is sexier. Joan Fontaine would have been better in the part (ten years later). For all the passions of the story, her performance is dull - and the movie hard to accept.
11 out of 15 people found the following review useful: This is a very good movie, 29 May 2006 Author: (essayons1@hotmail.com) from United States
In terms of visual beauty this movie is outstanding! I had no idea that Technicolor came out so early. Although I didn't like the ending, the entire movie is fantastic and makes me wish that I was in North Africa. The cast is excellent and Marlene Dietrich is a big plus and of course she is so alluring and I just loved her in this flick. Basil Rathbone is also perfect in this movie. I couldn't get over the scenery and the sets... The hotel, the palm trees, the desert, it's all there... the legionnaires also bring a "Beau Geste" feeling to the film. They certainly don't make movies like these anymore. Don't fail to watch this classic!
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Dated Melodrama, 4 February 2008 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The religious Domini Enfilden (Marlene Dietrich) is feeling lonely and is advised by her friend Mother Superior Josephine (Lucile Watson) to travel to the Sahara Desert for reflection. Meanwhile, the monk Boris Androvsky (Charles Boyer) escapes from the Trappist monastery where he had taken his vows. They meet each other in the sands of the desert and fall deeply in love for each other, but Boris does not tell his secret to Domini. When a lost patrol of legionnaires meet the oasis where Domini and Boris are camped, the leader Captain De Trevignac (Alan Marshal) recognizes Boris."The Garden of Allah" is an absolutely dated melodrama in 2008. The scenarios, the locations and the cinematography are wonderful, but the dramatic plot point of the romance is laughable and dull in the present days. It is also funny to see Charles Boyer taller and taller than Marlene Dietrich in the scenes with close. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "O Jardim de Alá" ("The Garden of Allah")
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Glamour and Romance To The Max.....Surrender!, 7 July 2004 Author: Doghouse-6 from Glendale, CA
Much abuse has been heaped upon this film in users' comments here ("tripe," "hokum," etc.) and, yes, in later years even Marlene herself called it "twash," (along with most of the rest of her movies). But it's gweat twash and, in all fairness, much-loved weepies like "An Affair To Remember" have got nothing on this picture. The fabulousness (that's definitions 1 & 2 in Webster's) of the plot, the emphatic performances, the overblown dialogue and the sheer absurd audacity of full silver service and "dressing for dinner" in a tent in the middle of the Sahara; these are the very things for which you watch a film like this. After all, if life was never like this anywhere, at any time, it sure should have been.The user who suggested the "right mood" is necessary is absolutely correct, and it helps to remember the perspective of audiences of the time who, while the Depression dragged on, desired escapism that bore no resemblance to their real lives. We certainly have our escapist fare today and, believe me, "Spiderman," "The Matrix" and "The Fast and the Furious" are going to look at least as ridiculous (if not more so) after a half-century (if not before). So, please, let's not have any more carping about implausibility.The aspects that have garnered the most criticism are some of the very elements that make it so much fun, but you must abandon your jaded cynicism and surrender yourself to the experience. I'd never recommend this film to everyone I know, but of those to whom I have done - people I knew could appreciate it - not one has gotten all the way through it without choking back a tear or two (if not outright bawling like a baby).One thing everyone does seem to agree on is the ravishingly beautiful look of this picture, and they're oh-so-right about that. The DVD from Anchor Bay is particularly stunning - there are scenes that look like they were shot yesterday - so, if you decide to see the film, try to get your hands on a copy of that release.Incidentally, this was not the first Technicolor picture in the three-strip process (as opposed to the two-strip, which goes back to 1922) shot on location, as one comment said. That honor most likely belongs to "Trail Of the Lonesome Pine," which was shot and released a few months earlier.
7 out of 12 people found the following review useful: Story - enhh, picture - amazing., 17 January 2005 Author: Jim M-2 from West Nyack, NY
"The Garden of Allah" was one of the first feature length, 3-strip Technicolor films. To correct a previous poster the first Technicolor feature (after Disney's 5-year exclusivity deal) was 1935's "Becky Sharp" which was a costume drama that used the color for it's garish color costumes."The Garden of Allah" looks as if it could have been shot years later as the cinematography uses not only the color but also the use of shadows. It must have been amazing for an audiences at the time to see a color feature after seeing basically only black and white films for their whole life. Unfortunately, the film does not stand up to the cinematography. That being said, the film is worth seeing just as a visual treat.
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