Greta Garbo was a Swedish-American actress and a premier star during Hollywood's silent and early golden eras. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time, she was known for her melancholic and somber screen persona, her film portrayals of tragic characters, and her subtle and understated performances. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on its list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
Edward Brewster Sheldon was an American dramatist. His plays include Salvation Nell (1908) and Romance (1913), which was made into a motion picture with Greta Garbo.
Queen Christina is a pre-Code Hollywood biographical film, produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933 by Walter Wanger and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. It stars Swedish-born actress Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in their fourth and last film together.
Flesh and the Devil is an American silent romantic drama film released in 1926 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and stars Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson, and Barbara Kent, directed by Clarence Brown, and based on the novel The Undying Past by Hermann Sudermann.
Camille is a 1936 American romantic drama film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer directed by George Cukor, and produced by Irving Thalberg and Bernard H. Hyman, from a screenplay by James Hilton, Zoë Akins, and Frances Marion. The picture is based on the 1848 novel and 1852 play La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The film stars Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Jessie Ralph, Henry Daniell, and Laura Hope Crews. It grossed $2,842,000.
Anna Karenina is a 1935 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation of the 1877 novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and directed by Clarence Brown. The film stars Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone, and Maureen O'Sullivan. There are several other film adaptations of the novel.
The Painted Veil is a 1934 American drama directed by Richard Boleslawski and starring Greta Garbo. The film was produced by Hunt Stromberg for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Based on the 1925 novel The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham, with a screenplay by John Meehan, Salka Viertel, and Edith Fitzgerald, the film is about a woman who accompanies her new husband to China while he conducts medical research. Feeling neglected by her husband, the woman soon falls in love with a handsome diplomatic attaché. The film score was by Herbert Stothart, the cinematography by William H. Daniels, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons, and the costume design by Adrian. The film earned $1,658,000 at the box office.
Anna Christie is a 1930 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer pre-Code film adaptation of the 1921 play of the same name by Eugene O'Neill. It was adapted by Frances Marion, produced and directed by Clarence Brown with Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg as co-producers. The cinematography was by William H. Daniels, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and the costume design by Adrian.
Anna Christie is a 1930 German-language film adapted from the 1921 Eugene O'Neill play of the same title and filmed following the release of the English-language original version of the same adaptation earlier the same year. Both versions feature leading actress Greta Garbo. In the early years of sound films, Hollywood studios produced foreign-language versions of some of their films using the same sets and sometimes the same costumes, with native speakers of the language usually replacing some or all of the original cast. The German-language version of Anna Christie is one of the few that survives.
Torrent is a 1926 American silent romantic drama film directed by an uncredited Monta Bell, based on a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and released on February 21, 1926. Torrent was the first American film starring Swedish actress Greta Garbo. The film also starred Ricardo Cortez and Martha Mattox.
The Divine Woman (1928) is an American silent film directed by Victor Sjöström and starring Greta Garbo. Produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Only a single nine-minute reel and an additional 45-second excerpt are currently known to exist of this otherwise lost film, the only complete copy of which was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire.
Inspiration is a 1931 American pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer romantic melodrama film adapted by Gene Markey from the Alphonse Daudet novel Sappho (1884). The film stars Greta Garbo, Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone and Marjorie Rambeau. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Irving Thalberg. The cinematography was performed by William H. Daniels, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and the costume design by Adrian.
The Mysterious Lady (1928) is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer silent film romantic drama, starring Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel, and Gustav von Seyffertitz, directed by Fred Niblo, and vaguely based on the novel War in the Dark by Ludwig Wolff.
The Kiss is a 1929 American synchronized sound drama film directed by Jacques Feyder, starring Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel, and Lew Ayres in his first feature film. The film has no audible dialogue but featured a synchronized musical score and sound effects. The soundtrack was recorded using the Western Electric Sound System sound-on-film process. The soundtrack was also transferred to discs for those theatres that were wired with sound-on-disc sound systems.
A Woman of Affairs is a 1928 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer synchronized sound drama film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Lewis Stone. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The film was based on a 1924 best-selling novel by Michael Arlen, The Green Hat, which he adapted as a four-act stage play in 1925. The Green Hat was considered so daring in the United States that the movie did not allow any associations with it and was renamed A Woman of Affairs, with the characters also renamed to mollify the censors. In particular, the film script eliminated all references to heroin use, homosexuality and syphilis that were at the core of the tragedies involved.
The Single Standard is a 1929 American synchronized sound romantic drama film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer directed by veteran John S. Robertson and starring Greta Garbo, Nils Asther and Johnny Mack Brown. The film has no audible dialogue but featured a synchronized musical score and sound effects. The soundtrack was recorded using the Western Electric Sound System sound-on-film process. The soundtrack was also transferred to discs for those theatres that were wired with sound-on-disc sound systems.
Wild Orchids is a 1929 American synchronized sound drama film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer directed by Sidney Franklin and starring Greta Garbo, Lewis Stone and Nils Asther. Only these three stars received cast credit. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The plot is very similar to Garbo's later sound film, The Painted Veil (1934).
Romance is a 1920 American silent drama film directed by Chester Withey and released through United Artists. The film is based on the 1913 play Romance by Edward Sheldon and stars Doris Keane, the actress who created the role in the play. This was Miss Keane's only motion picture. D. W. Griffith allowed the use of his Mamaroneck Studios for the production. The nephew of Griffith's favorite cameraman, Billy Bitzer, was the cinematographer. The story was later remade as Romance in 1930, an early talking vehicle for Greta Garbo.
Outcast Lady is a 1934 American romantic drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced and distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer. The film stars Constance Bennett, Herbert Marshall and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. It is a sound version of Michael Arlen's 1924 novel The Green Hat, filmed in 1928 by MGM as A Woman of Affairs with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
Romance is a play by the American dramatist Edward Sheldon. It was first produced in New York in 1913, and a London production followed in 1915, which ran for 1,049 performances. Both productions featured Doris Keane as an opera star who has an intense affair with a young clergyman.
