Pretty Good

Don't Believe the Hype

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

As of my writing these comments, a large number of people who rated this film also wrote reviews on it – about 5 percent. Most commented on the love story and the co-stars, and many noted the scenery and wonderful cinematography of such an early Technicolor movie. A few found the religious aspects out of place. There's no doubt that the script for "The Garden of Allah" is wanting. The story seems choppy and disconnected in many places. Yet the plot is able to rescue this film because it is less bound by need for a seamless flow of scenes. The story is about a conflict of faith, and the plot raises that above the love story in several instances. There was a time when people seemed to enjoy or value occasional films of this nature. But they are rare indeed in the past two decades. That most reviewers so far have given so little due to the crisis of faith in this film may indicate that society in general has lost touch with an aspect of life that once was a serious study and interest of civilization. Aside from its script weaknesses, "The Garden of Allah" presents very well the angst of spiritual conflict among two believing Christian souls. Scenes of Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer show the depth of faith of these two people who were brought together by different and unusual circumstances. This is a movie well worth seeing.

If you did "The Garden of Allah" today, you'd have to play it for camp. As produced in 1936, it nearly is anyway.Marlene Dietrich, Charles Boyer, Basil Rathbone, C. Aubrey Smith, and Joseph Schildkraut star in this David O. Selznick Technicolor production. The story concerns a religious woman, Domini, who is in mourning for her father and visits the convent where she lived as a child. The Mother Superior encourages her to go out and live, as she was her father's caretaker and didn't get out into the world.She meets Boris Androvsky, and he seems even more unfamiliar with the world than she. What she doesn't know is that he was a Trappist monk and has left the order. The two fall in love and marry. However, someone eventually recognizes him, and his secret is revealed.I have to say, I feel sorry for any ex-Trappist monk running into gorgeous Marlene Dietrich, especially under a desert sky. The atmosphere of this film is very moody, the color beautiful, and the photography sensational. Filmed in California and Arizona, it looks for all the world like an exotic desert setting.Even with all this, and a young, handsome Charles Boyer, the film comes off as melodramatic and slight. Partly I blame the overly-dramatic music, but let's face it, the script isn't very good.Marlene Dietrich is very good and underplays her role; Boyer's role is really impossible. He's confused and miserable through most of it. He was an excellent actor and pulls it off, though. Rathbone doesn't have a big role, nor does Schildkraut, but they were two of the best character actors around."The Garden of Allah" is definitely worth seeing - it's wonderful to look at, and when you see the Cyndi Lauper video of "Time after Time," this is the film she was watching in the beginning of the song.

When Marlene Dietrich was labeled box office poison in 1938 one of a handful of actresses so named by the trades papers, it was films like The Garden Of Allah. How a film could be so breathtakingly beautiful to behold and be so insipidly dull is beyond me. Also how Marlene if she was trying to expand her range and not play a sexpot got stuck with such an old fashioned story is beyond me.The Garden Of Allah, one of the very first films in modern technicolor was a novel set at the turn of the last century by Robert Hitchens who then collaborated on a play adaption with Mary Anderson that ran for 241 performances in 1911-12. It then got two silent screen adaptions. The story is about a monk who runs away from the monastery out in French Tunisia to see some of what he's missed in the world. He runs into a similarly sheltered woman who was unmarried and spent her prime years caring for a sick parent. She's traveling now in the desert and the two meet on a train.The woman is of course Marlene and the runaway monk is Charles Boyer. I'm not sure what was in David O. Selznick's mind in filming this story. Someone like Ingrid Bergman might have made it palatable for the audience. But you can bet that the movie-going public of 1936 when they plunked their money down for a ticket they expected to see Marlene as a modern day Salome rather than a saint with that title. The public still remembered Rudolph Valentino and you can bet that it was some desert romance and seduction that they were expecting.As for the monks you have to remember that they are self supporting in their monasteries and this particular one bottles a special wine of which Boyer happens to be the one with the secret. The monastery will have to rethink it's economics if Boyer leaves. The monks are a sincerely pious group, but from the head man Charles Waldron on down they've a right to be a little concerned with some self interest.Anyway a whole lot of religious platitudes get said here by a pair of leads that really are not suited for the parts. Most especially Marlene Dietrich. I would watch this film with an eye for the special color desert cinematography and forget the plot.

Gorgeous Techicolor production telling the unusual tale of the romance between a woman of strong religious faith and a Trappist monk who has left his monastery, breaking his vows. The film opens at a convent in Europe, where a former student prays - a lonely beauty in black named Domini (Marlene Dietrich). She is advised by the Mother Superior to go to the desert and "find herself", and lose her grief over her father who has recently died. In the train car on the way into the Sahara she sits opposite a very, very troubled man (Charles Boyer) - our former monk. She's soon at a hotel near a palm-treed oasis where she again sees our mysterious troubled man as he is stumped over what to do when confronted by a very seductive dancing girl. Domini becomes friends with him, though knows nothing of his past - romance soon to follow.This film is sentimental, melodramatic, and different (in a way, almost surreal and even a bit campy) - I found it to be quite fun and entertaining. The photography in this is really interesting - it is full of extreme facial close-ups and beautiful color shots of caravans of horses crossing the desert, silhouetted figures against a sunset sky. Marlene Dietrich gives a nicely done, though restrained, performance here and looks gorgeous. Charles Boyer - not usually one of my favorites - is actually pretty good in this, I think the part sort of suits him and he looks quite young and handsome too. Basil Rathbone is fine here, except given very little to do. Another great orchestral score by Max Steiner helps keep the drama rolling - all in all, a very enjoyable film.