One evening back in the late 70s, I was talking about Greta Garbo with Orson Welles. He was a big fan of hers and was praising her unique quality, her smile, her voice. Being still somewhat pedantic, I said that I agreed she was great, but that considering all those 27 features she acted in between 1922 and 1941, only two really held up: the devastating drama-love story Camille (1936), directed by George Cukor, and the satirical comedy-romance Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Orson looked at me for a long moment and then said quietly, “You only need one … ”
Although she became an international star during the silent era—starting with two European films, from Sweden The Saga of Gosta Berling (1924), and from Germany The Joyless Street (1925), and later with all her subsequent pictures produced in Hollywood by MGM, the slickest of American studios—she achieved real immortality with the talkies, as evidenced by the two-word ad campaign for Anna Christie (1930), her first sound film: GARBO TALKS! It was the highest-grossing picture of the year. And for her first comedy (the above-noted Ninotchka): GARBO LAUGHS! But after that, and just one more film later, Greta Garbo—from age 36 to her death at 84—never acted in another movie.
