Old Hollywood romance is as foreign as kabuki to lots of people; they choke on a movie mood drenched in magnolias, and wonder why the star-crossed lovers so often surrendered to the prim prejudices of propriety rather than flipping the bird to the world and just shacking up, till ennui do them part. To these modernists, I suggest you straitjacket yourself, Clockwork Orange-style, and spend two hours with Greta Garbo as Dumas' doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier. Her brittle heart is touched by a guileless swain (the very young Robert Taylor), and tragedy ensues. For me, this is where a weepy story and a great, daring actress feed each other to create sublime and devastating art.