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 to $300,000 per film. The film's screenplay had been written by Viertel, and although MGM had been reluctant to make the movie, they relented at Garbo's insistence. For her leading man, MGM suggested Charles Boyer or Laurence Olivier, but Garbo rejected both, preferring her former co-star and lover, John Gilbert. The studio balked at the idea of casting Gilbert, fearing his declining popularity would hurt the film's profits, but Garbo prevailed. "Queen Christina" was a lavish production, becoming one of the studio's biggest productions at the time. Publicized as "Garbo returns", the film premiered in December 1933 to critical acclaim