Rating: - Timeless Romance
Conquest is loosely based on fact, the story of Napoleon (Charles Boyer). Here we watch as he falls for a young countess (Greta Garbo), causes her to fall from grace by betraying her husband, and allows his love to ruin him as an emperor. The countess has a Nationalist's love for Poland and wishes for Napoleon to liberate her country. Her hero worship soon turns to undying love through his failure, exile, and unfaithfulness.
Garbo is luminous in this. None of her actions are overt but every one rings true; every scene is emotionally intense. I have never thought of her as any great ... Read More
Rating: - MGM's Lavish "Prestige" Historical Drama From 1937
"Conquest", starring a radiant Greta Garbo and Charles Boyer in one of his best roles ever often suffers at the hands of critics because of the fact that it went down into history as one of MGM's biggest money losers for 1937 after a fortune had been lavished on it by the studio. Viewed today it is easily seen as one of MGM's regular prestige features during the 1930's achieved with lavish expenditure on stars, film personnel, costumes and sets designed to build on the studio's reputation for providing no expense spared entertainment of the first order. In the reviews at the time for Greta Garbo ... Read More
Rating: - Nice old-fashioned historical romance!
Charles Boyer and Greta Garbo play opposite each other as, respectively, the great Napoleon Bonaparte and a Polish noblewoman who captures his heart. Garbo is stunning: this is her at the height of her sensuality, while Boyer's Napoleon is a fiery, arrogant, magnetic character who gains our sympathy by the film's end. A grand, old-fashioned romance that pays viewers off quite nicely. Recommended.
Rating: - BOYER IS BRILLIANT
As Garbo's last dramatic role, this is often included in the retrospectives that have kept her genius visible to new generations. For the only time in Garbo's starring career, her male opposite had a more interesting role than her own in CONQUEST. Charles Boyer, as Napoleon was the flame around which his Polish mistress, Marie Walewska, fluttered in this Samuel Hoffenstein-Salka Viertel-S.N. Behrman script; their doomed affair is superbly acted by both stars under Clarence Brown's able direction. However, it DOES lack the bravura scenes which made CAMILLE so special. Although she looks utterly beautiful, ... Read More
Rating: - Old silver screen romance at its best
I was first introduced to "Conquest" in the Medved Brothers' tome "The Hollywood Hall of Shame" in which the movie gained an honorary mention as being the biggest money-loser of 1937. So when I saw it I was unexpectedly surprised- in fact I really liked it. "Conquest" stars not only the fabulous Scandinavian woman of mystery, Greta Garbo, but 1930s French matinee idol Charles Boyer (of "Gaslight" and "Algiers" fame) in a very entertaining and sudsy costume romance about Napoleon and a Polish countess, Marie Walewska. It's Old Silver Screen Romance at its best; gorgeous actors, spectacular sets and ... Read More
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