"Camille," Greta Garbo, Geraldine Chapman, Robert Altman, "Kung Fu" & a famous opera -- Garbo

You ever had a chance to see Robert Altman's wonderful 1975 film "Nashville"? It's one of Altman's full-ensemble movies, with lots of characters whose lives are interconnected. The assistant director, Alan Rudolph, went on the next year to direct (under the auspices of Robert Altman) "Welcome to L.A." It was not the big hit that "Nashville" was. 

If you have been following my series of posts about Greta Garbo's movies, you may be wondering where I am going with this, and I don't blame you. But give me a few  paragraphs and I'll bring us 'round to where I need to be. 

One factor which made "Nashville" a hit was its excellent soundtrack. The LP included a folk-rock number by actor David Carradine, who was looking a bit like the "Doonesbury character" Zonker at the time. 

At the tine "Nashville" was released, Carradine, who comes from an acting family, was known to us as the brother of the actor who played lead character in the TV show "Kung Fu." Here's the opening to the show:

So, to recap: David Carradine was in "Kung Fu," his brother Keither had been one of the ensemble in "Nashville" and his song "I'm Easy" from the "Nashville" soundtrack. Alan Rudolph, the assistant director for "Nashville," went on to direct "Welcome to L.A." and he cast Keith Carradine as the lead in the latter film. In this role, Carradine no longer looked like Zonker from "Doonesbury, but more like a beatnik, a cross between Shaggy from Scooby-Do and Shaggy's inspiration, Maynard G. Krebs. 

In 'Welcome to L.A.", Carradine plays another singer-songwriter, and this time he earns his daily bread as the driver for a private car service. In this capacity, he chauffeurs an unhappy housewife, Karen, who's played by Geraldine Chaplin. (She's the woman in the photo at the top of this post. )

Even though the setting is contemporary for this mid-70s film, Karen is dressed like an actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood. She pays Carroll, Carradine's character, to drive her up and down the streets of Los Angeles while she coughs delicately into a lace handkerchief, in tribute to Greta Garbo in "Camille."

"Camille," released in 1936, is based on an 1848 century novel in which the heroine's romance is doomed because she is dying of consumption (tuberculosis). 

The film is directed by George Cukor, and while I am not sure that Garbo's spare Scandinavian face was ever meant to be surrounded by ringlets and sausage curls, or that Robert Taylor seems all that in love with The Lady of the Camellias, the movie does have opera-box intrigue, which I do love. 

Here's the trailer for the film, selling us Garbo + romance:

After it was a novel, the story of Camille was both a play and a movie, but it's also been a ballet. Here's a video clip of dancers doing a bit of that. 

If this is starting to seem a little familiar, that's because one of the world's best-known operas is based on the same story (there was a real Lady of the Camellias). Of course, it's La Traviata. 

Next week: "Conquest," with Garbo in sausage curls again

Garbo