Queen Christina (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Historically, Queen Christina of Sweden (1026-89) was a short, ugly, mannish monarch who enjoyed smutty stories and slept with one of her ladies-in-waiting. In the cinema Greta Garbo makes her a more feminine creature. Since perversion, under the Hays code, must be treated, if at all, with levity, the only masculine trait exhibited by Queen Christina is a taste for trousers. She employs a valet (C. Aubrey Smith) instead of a chambermaid, washes her face with snow, reads Voltaire and says that she expects to die "not an old maid,...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In