Greta Garbo and German Film

The glamorous Greta Garbo (1905-1990) is perhaps best known for exclaiming, "I want to be alone!"

Born in Sweden, she moved to Hollywood in 1925. But she also worked in the German film industry at the beginning of her career. One of her first major roles was in the 1925 film Joyless Street (Die freudlose Gasse), directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. The film relentless depicts the decline into poverty of a middle class family in Vienna, after the First World War. Greta Garbo plays a character named Greta, who is tempted to become a prostitute to help pay the bills for her poor father.

Garbo was known for her distant ethereal beauty. In Hollywood, it took another German emigre film-maker, the sophisticated Ernst Lubitsch to bring out her comedic talents in Ninotchka (1939), which was heavily advertised with the slogan, "Garbo Laughs!" Here's the trailer.

Garbo has inspired numerous tributes on youtube. This one is set to "Garbo," by the Austrian singer Falco.