I used to own an old VHS tape of "The Green Goddess" (1930), but it's been years since I had any of those old tapes. Yesterday I re-watched this George Arliss vehicle for the first time in at least 30 years, and I enjoyed it all over again. It's dated, yes, and unfortunately Ralph Forbes is in it, a person who never learned to act in sound films, period. But Arliss is such a superb actor that, no matter what, the film is so very fun to watch. He's so full of Victorian stage acting technique that one can't help but be captured by a certain hamminess that screams to the rafters, but it's in his liquid body movements, full of grace and poise, and a voice that registers practice and experience that gives his performances across the board a positive charisma still noticeable 80 years after his death.
The premise of the film is absolute nonsense, a mixture of "Lost Horizon", "Gunga Din", "Frankenstein", "Dracula", and all the revenge films combined. In the end, the British ("civilization") still beat the underdog people in the Himalaya's (India, "barbarians"). The words in parentheses are those of Arliss, who, when he speaks them as a man of India, is scathing in their satiric intent. One can't help but notice that Arliss was having a ball playing this character, even in the face of Winston Churchill's trying to hold on to India as a "piece" of Britain, and Arliss probably saw in his own life that such would not be the long-term fate for Britain.
The main thing that I took away, though, was that the final line in the film I always thought was, "She probably would have been a lot of trouble anyway!" What came out of Arliss' mouth was, "She probably would have been a damn nuisance anyway!" Perhaps Bob Fells could answer this question: were there two versions released? Was one made for British audiences and one for American audiences, or am I just imagining all of this. I've seen the '23 silent version, too, but I don't remember how it ends. Help, Bob!
Also in the film are Alice Joyce (who'd also been in the '23 version), H. B. Warner, Ivan F. Simpson (great personal friend of Arliss' and one who was in many Arliss films), Reginald Sheffield, Nigel de Brulier, and several others.
