Greta Garbo cross-dresses, dallies with John Gilbert and kisses a woman — all things she did away from the camera as well — in Rouben Mamoulian’s Queen Christina, which will be shown at 3 PM EST on TCM tomorrow as part of their day-long look at her career.
Unfortunately, TCM’s Garbo marathons are almost always the same: The Kiss, Mata Hari, Anna Karenina, Camille, Ninotchka, Grand Hotel, plus a couple more of the usual suspects, most of them long available on DVD. I’d like to see TCM (or any channel that has the rights) air something rarer, like The Painted Veil.
It came out in 1934, a year after Queen Christina, and had Garbo in another lesbian liplock, this time with Cecilia Parker. To satisfy the demands of the newly created Hays Code, their kisses were presented as mere sisterly affection. But all you have to do is see the movie, or even glance at a screen cap, to know there was nothing familial about it.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.