It should be pointed out that while Camille isn't the greatest film ever made (or even the best film made that year, I imagine), it has a certain quality you can't quite figure out. Part of that is due to Garbo and Taylor's chemistry, and part of it may just be the slight shock in seeing Lionel Barrymore play someone other than Mr. Potter. Even for a period drama, the film has not aged all that well, but the story is a timeless one that cuts through the drivel and strikes a resounding chord that in the end all you need is love. Because the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. Even if the Baron gets her body, he cannot have her heart.

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[1] Shades of Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (2001), to be sure. Minus the songs and the dancing and the narcoleptic Argentinean, the plots are almost identical. This can mean one of two things: 1) Luhrmann took most of the plot from Camille, or 2) Cukor built a time machine and took the plot from Moulin Rouge!. The romantic in me would like to think the latter, but that seems unlikely.

[2] Alexandre Dumas fils wrote this play and the original novel, but is not to be confused with his father, the legendary Alexandre Dumas père. The elder Dumas wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

[3] Lest someone actually assume all of these things exist in the original play and/or novel, I'll add this disclaimer: I have not read it. And if you think I'm going to read an entire play just to check for accuracy here, you've lost your mind.

[4] Also known as tuberculosis. Just like Nicole Kidman.

Details
starring: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, and Elizabeth Allan
written by: Zoe Akins & Frances Marion and James Hilton, from the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils
directed by: George Cukor
NR, 109 min, 1936, USA