Greta Garbo what we really ought to look at is the girl… The girl, look at the girl!" After the screening, his daughter reported, he was unwavering: "I'll take her without him. I'll take her "with" him. Number one is the girl." In 1925, Garbo, then 20 and unable to speak English, was brought over from Sweden at the request of Mayer. Both Garbo and Stiller arrived in New York in July 1925 after a 10-day trip on the SS "Drottningholm". But they remained in New York for more than six months without any word from MGM. They decided to travel to
Greta Garbo resurrect her declining popularity. For her next movie, the studio teamed her with producer-director Ernst Lubitsch to film "Ninotchka", her first comedy. The film was one of the first Hollywood movies which, under the cover of a satirical, light romance, depicted the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin as being rigid and gray when compared to its prewar years. "Ninotchka" premiered in October 1939, publicized with the catchphrase "Garbo laughs!", commenting on the departure of Garbo's serious and melancholy image as she transferred to comedy. Despite the film's critical favoritism and box office success in the United States and abroad, it