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                    The Mysterious Lady (Fred Niblo, 1928)
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                              Technical Information
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Type..................: Movie
Container file........: AVI
Video Format..........: XviD
Total Bitrate.........: 2192 Kbps
Audio format..........: MP3 (128kb/s)
Audio Languages.......: Silent
Subtitles Ripped......: Spanish
Subtitles in Subpack..: Deutsch, Greek, Magyar, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish
Resolution............: 704x512
Aspect Ratio..........: 1.33:1
Original Aspect Ratio.: 1.33:1
Color.................: B&W
FPS...................: 25 FPS
Source................: Pal DVD
Duration..............: 1:29:17
Genre.................: Suspense
IMDb Rating...........: 7.3
Movie Information.....: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019195/

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                                 Release Notes
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Fred Niblo                - Director
Harold S. Bucquet         - Assistant Director
Bess Meredyth             - Treatment and Continuity
Marian Ainslee            - Titles
Ruth Cummings             - Titles
Margaret Booth            - Film Editor
Gilbert Clark             - Wardrobe
Cedric Gibbons            - Settings
Vivek Maddala             - Music

Cast:
Greta Garbo               - Tania Fedorova
Conrad Nagel              - Captain Karl von Heinersdorff
Gustav von Seyffertitz    - General Boris Alexandroff
Albert Pollet             - Max Heinrich
Edward Connelly           - Colonel Eric von Raden
Richard Alexander         - Aide to the general


PLOT: Austrian Captain Karl von Raden attends the opera one evening, and meets 
Tania. After the performance, he takes her home, and the two of them spend the 
next day on a romantic outing. That evening, Karl must deliver some important 
plans to Berlin. Just before boarding his train, he learns that Tania is really 
a Russian spy. She comes to see him aboard the train, and admits that she set 
things up on purpose so as to meet him, but she also insists that she truly has 
fallen in love with him. When Karl rebuffs her coldly, she steals the plans, 
which leads to him being court-martialed and imprisoned. Karl's influential 
uncle is able to provide him with one last chance to clear his name.  Written by 
Snow Leopard, IMDB

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SOME REVIEWS:

Secret service story [based on Ludwig Wolff's novel War in the Dark] involving a 
Russian feminine spy and an Austrian officer. Using up 83 minutes to unload this 
yarn is ridiculous.

Productionally it is very nice. Court balls, hundreds of uniforms, big interiors 
and beneath the surface much intrigue. Tania (Greta Garbo) has engineered her 
way into the heart of Karl (Conrad Nagel) but he turns on her when his uncle 
says she's a spy. For that Tania grabs some Austrian plans and Karl is court 
martialed and stripped of his uniform.

The secret service unc extracts him from prison so he can trail Tania to Warsaw. 
Posing as a musician, Karl finally finds his former sweetheart who gives 
evidence that he's still aces with her by returning the plans a fellow Austrian 
officer has slipped Gen Alexandroff (Gustav von Seyffertitz), in pursuit of 
Tania for years. The general becomes so wise that Tania shoots him.

Inasmuch as the opening title includes that familiar phrase, 'Vienna before the 
war', little else need be said. Garbo has done and is capable of better work. 
(Variety, extract from a review from 1928)


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In 1928, the silent film era was nearing its end, Greta Garbo was at the height 
of her popularity, and her frequent director, Fred Niblo, was four years from 
the end of his career. The Mysterious Lady, a fairly standard-issue Mata Hari 
story, paired Garbo, as Russian spy Tania Fedorova, with leading man Conrad 
Nagel, as Austrian officer Karl von Raden. Only the year before, Garbo repeated 
the great sensation she made with her Flesh and the Devil costar John Gilbert in 
Love. They were an electifying pair on screen, but Gilbert’s frequent dust-ups 
with studio head Louis B. Mayer brought his career to a premature end. As 
Garbo’s leading man in The Mysterious Lady, Nagel offers fans a rougher 
sexuality, one that helped Garbo reach further into a darker aspect of 
herself—moving from someone who is born evil (The Temptress, Flesh and the 
Devil) to one whose evil is pragmatic and ostensibly patriotic. The Mysterious 
Lady thus presents a certain evolution in the Garbo oeuvre, one that enhances 
her exoticism while allowing her to emotionally shade her shady ladies.

Niblo opens the films with a wonderful scene. Horse-drawn carriages bunched 
together, moving in and out of the frame in a dense tapestry, deposit their 
elegantly dressed passengers at the entrance of a Vienna opera house. Two 
soldiers, von Raden and his friend Max Heinrich (Albert Pollet), rush to the box 
office to buy tickets at the last minute. The performance is sold out. Just 
then, a man returns a ticket to the box office. He gives the pair a suspicious 
sidelong glance, but leaves quickly. The ticket clerk says he can sell the 
soldiers one ticket. Max insists that Karl take it; Max intends to let a few 
cabaret girls entertain him.

Max is seated in a box. In front of him is the sumptuous back of a woman leaning 
on the edge of the box, paying rapt attention to the singers on stage. He 
concentrates his gaze on her, her soft curls, her curved arms. During a brief 
lull in the action, she turns to him and says, “Franz, you’re very late." 
Surprised that he is not her cousin, she blushes. The pair are obviously 
attracted to each other, as they both squirm deliciously in their chairs, a 
really wonderful scene. The opera ends with the soprano dropping to her knees 
and moving toward the tenor in what looks like a declaration of love and plea 
for forgiveness.

The woman leaves and goes outside, only to be greeted with heavy rains and no 
ride home. As she stands on the street in confusion, Karl catches up to her and 
offers to take her home. She accepts, and when they arrive, she invites him in. 
They drink cognac and chat. Then Karl sits down to play her piano. He reprises 
the theme from the last scene of the opera, and she sings it. He falls in love 
on the spot. In rough passion, he grabs her from behind. She turns and invites 
his kiss. It’s a wonderfully choreographed scene of seduction, moving from 
polite to alarming to passionate.

Karl and Tania spend the next day in typical movie happiness—frolicking in 
nature. When their day is at its end, Karl tells Tania he must leave for Berlin 
for a short while. Tania wonders if there can again be days as wonderful as they 
have had. Karl vows to come back soon, and they will have many more such days. 
When he leaves, Tania goes inside and opens a letter. Someone named Boris tells 
her he misses her terribly. A rueful look crosses her face. Foreboding is in the 
air.

Karl picks up some important military plans from his superiors and is told by 
his Uncle Eric (Edward Connelly) that the woman he was seen with the previous 
night is a notorious Russian spy. Karl’s disbelief turns to anger. Karl boards 
the train and secures the documents in a briefcase. Tania bursts into his 
compartment from the adjoining compartment, telling him she had to see him one 
more time. He rebuffs her and accuses her of setting him up. She admits it, but 
says she really does love him and wants him to give her a chance. He becomes 
enraged. She says, “Don’t make me hate you, Karl," but nothing will get through 
to him. In the morning, he awakens and finds that the documents are missing. He 
is arrested, courtmartialed for treason, and thrown in prison. The rest of the 
film details his escape and his plot to track down Tania and recover the 
documents and his honor.

There are so many wonderful moments in this film. For example, Karl’s public 
disgrace is really excruciating to watch. The ritual—broken sword, removal of 
all signs of rank and medals of accomplishment, and finally, cutting of buttons 
from the uniform coat—is done with precision and a horrible coldness we don’t 
feel Karl deserves. In another memorable scene, Boris (Gustav von Seyffertitz), 
Tania’s lover in waiting (it appears they have never had sex), throws her a 
birthday party. The camera movements for the party are done in standard movie 
language—close-up on a tray of champagne glasses opening up to the party full of 
guests laughing, talking, and dancing. But a titillating undercurrent moves 
through this swirl as Karl, posing as a professional musician, sits down at the 
piano with his stack of music. A quick glance at Boris and then at Tania sets up 
the major tension for the remainder of the film. In a nice double exposure, we 
see Karl’s thoughts as his image gets up from the piano bench and strangles 
Tania, who is standing next to him singing.

Garbo is excellent throughout. She wears little make-up in her opening 
appearance, looking fresh and innocently lovely. Her flirtation with Nagel at 
her home is perfectly orchestrated—step close, move back, circle around a table 
to pour a drink. When she is cornered by Boris, who has had her watched ever 
since he discovered that von Raden was on the premises, her fear and confusion 
are those of a wild animal. She has no plan for escape—indeed, probably knows 
there is no hope of it—but keeps working selflessly to free Karl, wondering all 
the while whether he plans to take his revenge on her or believes that she loves 
him. It’s a real tour de force that is a pleasure to watch.

The film is part of a recently issued Turner Classic Movies collection of Garbo 
films. It was scored by TCM’s 2000 Young Film Composers Contest Winner, Vivek 
Maddala. I thought his score was a bit cheesy in spots, particularly his 
sentimentality during the love scenes, but the love theme from the opera that 
recurs when Tania thinks of Karl is touching. The film from which the DVD was 
made was in a poor condition in parts, particularly the first reel, but it’s all 
there and visible even through the scratches and pops. This film is a must-see 
for Garbo fans, and well worth any film lovers’ time. (Marilyn Ferdinand)


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                                 PLEASE NOTICE
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I always look for a balance between size and quality, hence a 1.4Gb rip for a
90-minute silent movie.  If it's too big for you, look somewhere else.

Check you have installed the right codecs, as listed in this .nfo file, before
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If you don't like the codec(s), container, resolution, file size, languages or
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Serious feedback on quality will always be welcome.

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