Films A to Z

The Garden of Allah

Runtime:
79 min.
Year of Production:
1936
Country:
USA
Director:
Cast:
Marlene Dietrich
Charles Boyer
Basil Rathbone
Production Company:
Selznick International Pictures
Berlinale Section:
Retrospective
Berlinale Category:
Feature Film

Domini Enfilden, who was raised in a convent, withdraws to North Africa after the death of her
father to try to find herself. There, at the edge of the Sahara, she takes up with the Russian-French
Boris Androvsky. They go riding together in the desert, fall in love, and even get married. But their
happiness is abruptly interrupted when Boris reveals the secret he’s been keeping; he was a monk,
who fled his Trappist monastery after suffering a crisis of faith … The melodrama was severely
condemned by Catholics. Much of the financing for the film came from John Hay Whitney, a major
investor in Technicolor and it was one of the first three-colour productions to use exterior scenes
to enhance the story. Shot at great expense in the Mojave Desert, the subtle use of colour and
consciously soft contrast turn the location into a spiritual landscape onscreen that perfectly reflects
the changing emotional states of the protagonists, with a palette and illumination that is reminiscent
of the Dutch and Flemish painters of the 16th and 17th century. Cinematographers Harold Rosson
and W. Howard Greene received a special Academy Award, the first Oscar ever given for colour
cinematography.

BIOGRAFIE Richard Boleslawski

Richard Boleslavsky was born in 1889 in tsarist Russia-ruled Poland. He trained as an actor at the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre under Konstantin Stanislavski and his assistant Leopold Sulerzhitsky, where he was introduced to the 'system'. During World War I, Boleslavsky fought as a cavalry lieutenant on the tsarist Russian side until the fall of the Russian Empire. He left Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 for his native Poland, where he directed his first movies. In September 1922, he made his way to New York City, where, now known as "Richard Boleslavsky" (the English spelling of his name), he began to teach Stanislavski's 'system' (which, in the US, developed into Method acting). Offered a contract to direct Hollywood films, Boleslavsky made several significant films with some of the major stars of the day.
source: wikipedia.org

FILMOGRAFIE Richard Boleslawski (selection)

1936 Three Godfathers  1936 The Garden of Allah  1936 Theodora Goes Wild  1935 Metropolitan  1934 The Painted Veil  1934 Men in White 

Richard Boleslawski IMDb
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