The word "Garbo" is the first thing that appears on the screen during The Painted Veil (1934), and it remains as a background motif throughout the other credits. The idea for this came from Greta Garbo's agent, Harry Eddington, who wanted to place his famous client in the company of Eleonora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt -- actresses for whom only a surname was necessary. In this screen version of the Somerset Maugham novel, set in the mysterious Orient, Garbo plays a woman who commits adultery but redeems herself during a cholera epidemic.

Garbo enjoyed both Herbert Marshall, who played her husband, and George Brent, who played her lover. Her biographer, Barry Paris, wrote that during filming she "was more sociable than usual, frequently lingering on the set to converse with Marshall, [or] share a laugh with Brent..."Marshall was impressed with her kindness, later recalling that during some rain-drenched crowd scenes Garbo "displayed keen concern for several elderly ladies in the mob, actresses who had been more important at another time."

Garbo was intrigued by Brent, who was dubbed "the male edition of Garbo" by the Hollywood press because of his athleticism and love of solitude. The two formed a close friendship, visiting secluded restaurants and having quiet dinners at Brent's home -- where they sometimes boxed in the backyard! Rumors spread that they were having a torrid love affair. Brent reportedly told friends he was in love with Garbo and wanted to marry her. But Garbo entertained no such ideas, and Brent was completely out of her life within a couple of years.

As The Painted Veil was released, MGM's publicity department sent a letter to theater owners promising that "This is THE Garbo of your fondest memories -- of live, pulse-quickening memory -- This woman is of warm flesh and warmer blood -- of desire -- and the courage to life and love and adventure." But the movie proved too exotic for Depression era audiences and did not do well at the box office. Two decades later, Eleanor Parker took on the Garbo role in a remake entitled The Seventh Sin (1957).

Producer: Hunt Stromberg
Director: Richard Boleslawski
Screenplay: John Meehan, Salka Viertel, Edith Fitzgerald, from novel by W. Somerset Maugham
Cinematography: William H. Daniels
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Original Music: Herbert Stothart
Editing: Hugh Wynn
Costume Design: Adrian
Cast: Greta Garbo (Katrin Koerber Fane), Herbert Marshall (Dr. Walter Fane), George Brent (Jack Townsend), Warner Oland (General Yu), Jean Hersholt (Herr Koerber), Cecilia Parker (Olga Koerber).
BW-85m. Closed captioning.

by Roger Fristoe