Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Halfway through this film, I started thinking how it almost seemed like the kind of film George Cukor would direct, with fussy attention to detail. Instead, CONQUEST is directed by Clarence Brown, a workmanlike craftsman who also tended to dwell too long on intimate and wordy scenes that lack enough spark.However, he does elicit fine performances from Garbo and Charles Boyer. Garbo is radiantly photogenic as the married woman, wife of an elder man (Henry Stephenson), who for the sake of her country gives herself to Napoleon (Boyer). And Boyer is every bit as convincing as the man destined for his Waterloo, acting the part with every bit of his abilities and often stealing the show.But what really steals the show is the lavish production MGM gave this story. The sets are opulent, majestic and large, looming over every frame of the film with no expense spared. The artful B&W cinematography captures every elegant detail of costumes and sets with breathtaking results.And the supporting cast is a sturdy one, including Dame May Witty, Reginald Owen, Maria Ouspenskaya, Alan Marshal and Leif Erickson.Garbo is livelier than usual, even smiling more often for her "gayer" moments when enthralled with being in love, and the chemistry between her and Boyer is evident from the start.It's too bad the film wasn't fully appreciated as one of her best films when it opened, but time has been kind to it. Despite some slow moments amid a longer than necessary running time, it's an historical romance played out in the Golden Age tradition of opulence expected from MGM.

CONQUEST (1937) directed by one of Garbo's favorite directors, Clarence Brown, is a movie that appears to have multiple levels of analysis. It is a historical epic, it is a romance, it is a Garbo movie and a Charles Boyer movie at the same time. Moreover, it is a Hollywood classic production from the days when art meant something more than automatic computerized techniques. I had usually wondered why many modern movie buffs turn to old films until I myself came across one or two true silver screen classics and fell in love with them. Now, for me, the most obvious answer to that question is that these films had a soul, they were made for beauty and passed this beauty to the world. In other words, they really had something to offer. However, they were also vehicles for stars. Among the actresses that still stands as a symbol of that cinema is Greta Garbo.Garbo, however, does not appear to be so good here as in her other films. She has a difficult role that, logically, occurs quite vague for the Swede. She portrays a very specific patriot, a Polish patriot, Marie Walewska whose love to her nation is psychologically torn by the love to a great conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte (Charles Boyer). He was, historically speaking, a great hope for the Poles since Poland did not exist at the map at the time and patriots hoped that by gaining Europe, he will help Poland rise again from the oppression of three neighboring empires. And that is mentioned clearly in the movie; yet Garbo turns out to be better in the romantic side of the role than in the historical one.Charles Boyer as Napoleon is perfect. He truly portrays an ambitious unstable character: proud, inconsistent, emotional, sometimes furious, strong yet easily broken conqueror whose psyche is built upon power and madness, upon courage and fear. He is the one who shakes the very fundamentals of Europe and, to the contrary, the one who is shaken within. His performance is truly one among the very best in the history of cinema and, as a result, his character is usually dominant in CONQUEST even though the film is not solely on Napoleon. There are roles everlasting, like Peter Ustinov's in QUO VADIS (1951), Garbo's in QUEEN Christina (1933), Bergman's in CASABLANCA (1942). So is it with underrated Charles Boyer's in CONQUEST (1937).Except for the aforementioned advantage of the movie, the historical events appear to be shadowed in the movie, directed towards background, like in many Hollywood movies of the time. Therefore, history is not a strong point of the film. Yet, the two other strengths about CONQUEST that should still be appreciated and cherished are stunning visuals and memorable moments. Clarence Brown was very good at directing elegant sequences in royal courts. He proved that in ANNA KARENINA a few years earlier as well as in other of his productions and that is exactly what we have here in CONQUEST: exceptionally beautiful picture of a "luxurious life" with lavish sets. Consider, for instance, the Schonnbrunn scenes or a visually symbolic pearl when the map of Europe is shadowed by the figure of Napoleon. As far as memorable moments are concerned, I most admired the romantic short scene when Napoleon tells Walewska "I love you" - such a well known sentence in cinema, yet presented in a beautiful way: snow falls as if it sealed their words. Among funny moments, the one worth considering is the hilarious conversation between Napoleon and Countess Pelagia Walewska: when she asks him who he is and he tells her "Napoleon", that does not make sense to her at all. I also laughed at the scene when Napoleon learns to dance with Walewska. Among the supporting cast, the performance that I find worthy attention is Dame May Witty's as Laetitia Bonaparte, Napoleon's mother.CONQUEST is a very beautiful film, a classic like many other movies of the time. However, as I have already mentioned, do not treat it as Garbo vehicle or your first Garbo movie for it is not. CONQUEST is the last film Garbo made with Clarence Brown, her last great love story but it is not at all similar to ANNA KARENINA or QUEEN Christina. CONQUEST is foremost an epic, a romance, a picture of sentimental patriotism and a Charles Boyer splendid manifestation of talent. 9/10

This film reminded me of another MGM costume drama--MARIE ANTOINETTE. Both were late 30s MGM epics with lavish costumes and the full MGM treatment (the typical high-budget music, dialog, pacing, direction, etc.). And, both were pretty boring--at least to me. Now I know these films were well-received at the time and they both starred MGM divas (Norma Shearer in MARIE ANTOINETTE and Greta Garbo in CONQUEST), but didn't change the fact that these were very stagy and unengaging films. To put this in some perspective, I love movies from Hollywoods Golden Age and I am a history teacher and I still was bored to tears by the films. I think it is films like these that got students to really hate history! My advice--watch a documentary about Napoleon or watch a romance but don't combine the two into a static and unappealing film like this.

Married Polish countess, Marie Walewska, falls in love with Napoleon Bonaparte, savior of her country. They engage in a passionate relationship lasting until his divorce from Empress Josephine is finalized and he is persuaded to marry into the Habsburg dynasty for political reasons.I watched this movie on Greta Garbo's 100th anniversary, and am moved to remark on her progress as an actress. I admired her fluidity as a screen presence, but she really came into her own in the mid-30s with great performances in 'Camille', 'Anna Karenina' and in 'Conquest'. Of course she looks awesome and wears a costume like no one else, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Just watch the marvelous scene in 'Conquest', where she, as the noble countess, greets her brother after a long separation. He comments on her hair which has grown longer, making it hard to pull, and she giggles and shrieks as they chase each other through the hallway. This is the most liberated Garbo ever was, and she is adorable.Charles Boyer is not to be outdid as Napoleon, and he has the meatier part of the two. He is mischievous and arrogant, impetuous and playful. You see the tyrant in Boyer's performance, just below the surface, waiting to be unleashed. His speech to Walewska about his dream of a United States of Europe obviously demands heightened interest in this day and age, and the quiet intensity, even solemnity of Boyer's delivery is brilliant. "I have signed many treaties, but this is the first time I am at peace", he tells her. Boyer's performance is many-layered and complex, neither hero nor scoundrel. Just very, very human.This has got to be director Clarence Brown's best film. I really liked 'The Eagle', his sprawling silent epic with Rudolph Valentino, but as a rule I find his other Garbo pictures, 'Anna Karenina' first and foremost, vapid and lifeless.I love a picture like 'Conquest' that affords detail in abundance, and I especially loved Maria Ouspensaya as Walewska' aging and dotty sister in-law who remembers nothing of the past 40 years. When she meets Napoleon in the parlor and he presents himself, incredulously, as the Empress of France, she smiles with tolerance, "This house is getting to be an insane asylum", she sighs, slightly scandalized. "Everybody who goes crazy thinks he is Alexander. If Alexander went crazy, who would he think he was?". "Napoleon, madame?", Boyer suggests.Watch it. And watch out for its release on DVD.