Mata Hari (1931 film)

Mata Hari is a 1931 pre-code film loosely based on the life of Mata Hari (the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida Zelle), an exotic dancer/courtesan executed for espionage during World War I. The film stars Greta Garbo in the title role. The film is credited with popularizing the legend of Mata Hari.

Cast (in credits order)

• Greta Garbo as Mata Hari
• Ramon Novarro as Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff
• Lionel Barrymore as General Serge Shubin
• Lewis Stone as Andriani (pavilion owner)
• C. Henry Gordon as Dubois (French Secret Service chief)
• Karen Morley as Carlotta (German agent)
• Alec B. Francis as Major Caron (Mata's lawyer)
• Blanche Federici as Sister Angelica
• Edmund Breese as Warden
• Helen Jerome Eddy as Sister Genevieve
• Frank Reicher as The Cook / Spy (German captain)

Financial success

Commercially, this was Garbo's most successful film and MGM's biggest hit of the year, netting a profit of nearly one million dollars.

Censorship upon reissue

As with many pre-code Hollywood films, this film was censored upon its reissue in May 1939 after the enforcement of the Hays Code. At least one known cut was made in the seduction scene of Lt. Rosanoff by Mata Hari; the ending of the scene was moved up with a......
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