Rating: 
Summary: Wavishing! Womantic! Wisible!
Review: A Technicolor fever dream of a movie, GARDEN OF ALLAH is a guilty pleasure par excellence. Any dramatic tension that depends on the burning passion of Boyer and Dietrich is doomed from the start; two more self-absorbed performers never graced the camera. But, in parallel universes of suffering, they pout and posture and preen so gracefully, all is quickly forgiven. Joseph Schildkraut and Tilly Losch bring a touch of Mittle Europe to the Exotic East, and David O. Selznick's over-the-top physical production is as hyperbolic as the story and stars. Quentin Crisp said that in his youth, most movies were made for melancholy middle-aged women. This picture is what he meant. Open a box of chocolates, and wallow.
Rating:
Summary: Wavishing! Womantic! Wisible!
Review: A Technicolor fever dream of a movie, GARDEN OF ALLAH is a guilty pleasure par excellence. Any dramatic tension that depends on the burning passion of Boyer and Dietrich is doomed from the start; two more self-absorbed performers never graced the camera. But, in parallel universes of suffering, they pout and posture and preen so gracefully, all is quickly forgiven. Joseph Schildkraut and Tilly Losch bring a touch of Mittle Europe to the Exotic East, and David O. Selznick's over-the-top physical production is as hyperbolic as the story and stars. Quentin Crisp said that in his youth, most movies were made for melancholy middle-aged women. This picture is what he meant. Open a box of chocolates, and wallow.
Rating: 
Summary: See It for One Golden Boyer Soliloquy on God v. The World
Review: A Trappist monk, who holds the secret of the monastery's excellent liqueur, makes a break for it, bumps into, and falls in love with, Marlene Deitrich, a devout Catholic, who learns the truth of his past from *BASIL RATHBONE* while vacationing in the trackless wastes of the Sahara desert. Will he or won't he return to the monastery, and why? OMIGOD. I never allow Political Correctness to get in the way of my enjoyment of a movie. In fact, I'll enjoy a movie to *spite* Political Correctness. But this is one of the most racist movies I've ever seen. And it is massively inept. You really wonder how the same man who produced GWTW, David Selznick, could have produced this fiasco. "The Garden of Allah" is unintentionally funny. In scene after scene, Arabs are depicted as being sex-obsessed bafoons. They are also depicted as having the same facial features as Northern Europeans, only with heavy dark make-up. And blue eyes peeking out. Joseph Schildkraut and John Carridine play Arabs. Oh, okay. Then why not we use Hattie MacDaniel in our next movie to play Pat Nixon. Makes exactly as much sense. There is a scene where a bunch of Arabs, all in matching white burnooses, are sitting around the desert at night, singing folksongs with some French Foreign Legionairres, and their heads are all moving back and forth to the same beat. One of the funniest scenes I've ever seen. Not meant to be. In another scene, a "dancer" squats and bends backward, utterly grotesque, an insult to real belly dancing. AAAAA!!!! All I kept thinking was, "What would an Arab make of this movie?" Probably they couldn't even watch it, or would watch it in a boiling rage. But there are other scenes, equally funny, that have nothing to do with Arabs. Marlene Deitrich goes to a European convent to get advice on what to do with her life. She's dressed, OF COURSE, to the nines. She couldn't survive more than a mile away from a 24-hour source of silk stockings. This is a woman whose greatest trek would be from the backseat of a limo to the front door of a nightclub. So this nun, a propos de rien, says, "Why don't you go out into the desert?" Yeah, right! Nuns always say that to women who go to them for advice! And ... Basil Rathbone. Need I say more? Basil Rathbone in a bright red robe -- thrown over a houndstooth check wool jacket -- wandering around the Sahara, trying to look at home? I don't think so. AND THEN you get an hour into this unintentional laugh-fest and there comes the scene where Boyer has to explain to Deitrich why he left the monastery, and Boyer is so fantastic in this scene, so genuinely, deeply moving, when he's finally given a chance, by this movie, to act, and given a chance, by this script, to say something coherent, and it's one of the most moving moments that the movies have produced on the matters of faith in God, and worldliness, and sex, and eroticism, and love. Really. It's that good -- good enough to sit through an hour of inept movie-making just to see it, and place in it context. Check it out.
Rating: 
Summary: AT LONG LAST! ! AS BEAUTIFUL AS IT IS SILLY!!
Review: About the third film made in full Technicolor, like most of David O. Selznick's early color films, this was only available in a mediocre VHS release (from the old Magnetic Video Company in about 1984!) which I recently hunted down on ebay, resigning myself to thinking that it would never be properly presented on video. Even that version showed it's incredible beauty. The new DVD is beyond anyone's wildest dreams as a document of how Technicolor originally looked and FELT. The over-ripeness of the material hardly matters as one breathtaking image follows another. The source material for this release isn't listed, but looks very close to have been newly mastered from the original nitrate negative. I'm going to take a look at Anchor Bay's new release of the "roadshow" version of DUEL IN THE SUN to see if it, too, is vastly improved over older video versions. Now, if whomever is in possession of the original Technicolor negatives of the 1937 A STAR IS BORN (Warner's perhaps?---the trailer included on the DVD of the 1954 version is STUNNING!), NOTHING SACRED and THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER could get it together, the important Technicolor output of Selznick International prior to GONE WITH THE WIND could be properly seen for the first time in over 60 years...hope springs eternal!
Rating:
Summary: A DIETRICH CURIOUSITY.
Review: An unusual film which will appeal to some for that very reason. The production values were obviously first-rate: the photography, musical score and direction are fine while the plot and characterisations are fairly rich and deep. As Domini, Dietrich is all nobility here. Seeking a spiritual rest after caring for her dying father, her advisor tells her to seek peace in the Algerian desert where she meets a trappist monk - who has broken his vows - in the person of Charles Boyer...This film wasn't one of Marlene's personal favourites: she thought the dialogue was in parts ridiculous - i.e. having to say such lines as "Nobody but God and I know what is in my heart" during a romantic interlude with Boyer. "The conceit of it! I tell you I very nearly died"! was her remark. Based upon the 1904 novel by Robert Hitchens, this curious film was shot on location near Yuma, Arizona. The film was sensitively directed by Richard Boleslawski and the still - gorgeous colour cinematography won an AA for Howard Greene.
Rating:
Summary: For Lovers of doomed exotic Romance
Review: Handsome movie, breathtakingly filmed in color, in fact, one of the first full length films in technicolor.
The image of the dvd edition, is so near perfection that it's difficult to believe that this picture was released in 1936! The plot is for sure outdated, but nevertheless the story of the doomed love affair between convent-educated Domini Enfilden and russian Boris Androvsky, a tormented trappist monk, who's just fled from his monastery, set against the beautiful background scenery of the desert, is enjoyable due to its aforementioned technical qualities and the "continental"appeal of both stars, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer. Although Dietrich looks stylish and alluring as Domini Enfilden, I feel she never looked as good again, as in her early '30s black & white Paramount films, directed by Von Sternberg. Boyer is effective as the troubled monk, who wants a taste of the "outside world". Excellent support by Basil Rathbone, Joseph Schildkraut and C. Aubrey Smith, plus a spectacular exotic arab dance sequence by then newcomer, Tilly Losch.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully reserved.
Review: I have a review from a movie magazine at the time of this films coming out with a drawing of Marlene as the Egyptian sphinx. The writer was stating how stone faced and expressionless she was. As much as I love her I must agree that she is very reserved in this movie. Not that it is bad, for the end shows a very emotional Marlene with tears welled up in her eyes. (Reminding me of her performance in "Blond Venus") I think the best thing about this movie besides her beauty in color, is the theme of love versus your "calling".
Rating:
Summary: STUNNING!!!
Review: I just completed three viewings of the Anchor Bay Release of this movie...I was stunnded & awestruck at the sheer beauty of this DVD. Every scene was carefully composed to show off the greatest beauty possible...Pure Eye Candy. The colors were bright and crisp and well defined. The sound quality was superb. One rarelly finds this perfection in this old of a movie.
Rating:
Summary: A great romance
Review: Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer star in THE GARDEN OF ALLAH, a tale of forbidden love and passion in the Algerian desert. Domini Enfilden (Marlene Dietrich) has spent her life caring for her ailing father, and she now wants her own life back again. She finds it when she travels to Algeria, and she meets Boris Androvsky (Charles Boyer), who, unbeknowst to her, is a runaway Trappist monk who deserted the order after taking the vows. They marry, and after a lengthy honeymoon in the Algerian desert, the truth comes out and she begs him to return to the order. Gloriously filmed in Technicolor, this David O'Selznick epic is one of the finer films in Dietrich's early career.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic is Reborn
Review: Producer David O. Selznick let the viewer know from the beginning of his films that they were "in the tradition of quality" from the colonial-like logo at the beginning all the way through to the end. THE GARDEN OF ALLAH was his first film in the then-rather new three-strip Technicolor. Up to now, one could only wince at prints that belched muffled sound and greeted the eye with unbalanced color and fuzzy optics. One was left to wonder just what standard of "quality" Selznick settled for in this expensively mounted films of the 1930s and 1940s. Fortunately, with Anchor Bay's DVD release, ALLAH is a classic literally reborn. Thanks to the Disney company, the current owner of the picture and responsible for restoring it, ALLAH is an entirely new film--sharp focus, vivid, stunning Technicolor, and a soundtrack that not only has a tremendous presence, but brings out all of the instruments and subtle tones in the great score by Max Steiner that provides at least half of the mood and atmosphere of this film. Yes, the story is old-fashioned about a trappist monk (Boyer) who renounces his vows and marries a lonely rich woman (Dietrich) who goes into the desert to find her meaning in life. But ALLAH shows just why Boyer and Dietrich were hot stuff in those days. This fatalistic story has a charm all its own, due in large part to the magnificent presentation of Anchor Bay's tremendous print. Anchor Bay's ALLAH sets a completely new standard for the DVD of a Technicolor film from the 30s. Enjoy
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