Greta Garbo than $1 million at the box office, becoming one of the studio's biggest failures of the decade. Garbo's popularity had considerably dropped, and when her contract expired soon thereafter, she returned briefly to Sweden. On 3 May 1938, Garbo was among the many stars—including Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Luise Rainer, Katharine Hepburn, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, Dolores del Río and others—dubbed to be "Box Office Poison" in an article published by Harry Brandt on behalf of the Independent Theatre Owners of America. After the box office failure of "Conquest", MGM decided a change of pace was needed to
Greta Garbo my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise." Despite her popularity as a silent star, the studio feared that her Swedish accent might impair her work in sound and delayed the shift for as long as possible. MGM itself was the last Hollywood studio to convert to sound and her last silent film, "The Kiss" (1929), was also the studio's. Garbo would go on to become one of the biggest box office draws of the next decade. In late 1929, MGM cast Garbo in "Anna Christie" (1930), a film adaptation of the 1922 play by Eugene O'Neill,