In 1932 Greta and Joan where offered parts in the first all star cast film, Grand Hotel.It was Joan's first class-A talkie. Greta played the part of and depressed and suicidal, Russian ballerina, Grusinskaya whos career is in serious decline. Joan played Flaemmchen, the money hungry stenographer, who is willing to do anything to please for a few pennies. They also starred along side Wallace Beery , Lewis Stone , John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore . More info  HERE!
 

The Famous Grand Hotel Group Photo

Since Garbo only interacted with John Barrymore in Grand Hotel, MGM's solution for placing her prictorially within the all-star cast was to paste her into the group photo.

  
The group photo
 

Garbo and Crawford didn't want to do Grand Hotel

MGM announced that they were putting together an all star cast for Grand Hotel. The primary cast was to include Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Buster Keaton. The first to drop out was Greta. “I t'ank I go home (to Sweden),” she said, a threat she was fond of using when things didn't go her way. In this instance she was upset by the choice of John Gilbert playing her leading man. Gilbert and Garbo had been lovers but had recently quarrelled, and it was up to Thalberg to tell Gilbert he was out of the picture.

Photomontage by Vi.

Norma Shearer was originally the first choice of the every important second female role, but fan Mail persuaded her not to play this role. A month before Grand Hotel was scheduled to begin production, an article in Screenland magazine questioned the choice of Joan for the role of the promiscuous stenographer, Flaemmchen. “Having donned the manner, voice and personality of a great lady in her private life,” said the magazine, “it remains to be seen whether she can unbend sufficiently to become the shabby, tragic little Berlin secretary.”

A few days later Joan tried to withdraw from the cast. Garbo had all the glamour and romantic scenes, while she had to go through the whole picture wearing only one dress. Thalberg told her she was a fall to pass up such an opportunity of playing the money hungry stenographer. “You want to become an actress in prestige pictures,” he told her. “Yes” said Joan, “but why must I look so shabby, with only one dress?” “Adrian will make you two dresses, and a peignoir,” Thalberg promised. "Okey-doke" said Joan.
 

The Grand Hotel Conference

In late 1931, the producers and the cast of the film held a meeting. Garbo agreed to attend. Everyone knew each other except Greta and Joan. Greta extended her hand and sat next to Joan. [Greta] was amiable, charming and she chatted with everyone present. Yes, even Joan “Mostly with Joan!”

Joan as Flaemchen
 

Version 2

On December 30, 1931, rehearsals for Grand Hotel commenced on soundstage five at MGM. A long table and chairs had been set out for the principals and the first to arrive was Miss Crawford. She swept onto the soundstage with her dog, Woggles, and seemed upset when she learned she had arrived first. “Her habit of punctuality cheated her of a good entrance,” said Edmund Goulding. When John and Lionel Barrymore entered, followed by Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, Goulding distributed the updated script and called the cast to order.

They would read the script straight through, he said. “But Miss Garbo has not arrived,” said Joan. “Miss Garbo has been excused from all rehearsals,” Goulding announced. Joan was crushed. She had mentally rehearsed a little routine for this, her introductory meeting with her idol.
 

They had no scenes together

Joan's disappointment over Greta not turning up at the conference turned to anger when she learnt that she had no scenes in the film with the great Garbo and that, furthermore, all of the leading star's major scenes would be shot on a separate soundstage, on a set closed to visitors.

Joan was disappointed

Both actresses called director Goulding. “Eddie, there are no scenes between Miss Crawford and me,” said Garbo. “Why is this?” “I explained to them that Grand Hotel, when you take a hard look at it, is two films in one,” said Goulding. The central character in each of the films was a woman in crisis, and the two films were linked by the character of the baron.
 

The Re-takes

On the March 17th, producer Irving Thalberg, his assistant Paul Bern, and director Edmund Goulding, carried six reels of film in three suitcases and boarded a plane for Monterey, California. That evening Grand Hotel was sneak-previewed at the Golden State Theatre, 60 percent of the viewers wrote “wonderful”, while 40 percent suggested minor changes, such as making Crawford's role bigger and Garbo's less sombre and remote. Thalberg agreed with the latter opinion. There were altogether too many ‘mugging close-ups', too many ‘Garbo's and Barrymore's', and not enough acting. He ordered that Garbo be recalled for re-takes.

Garbo portrait for Grand Hotel

“When Garbo sees the performance of Joan Crawford there will be some Swedish swearing,” W.R. Wilkerson predicted in The Hollywood Reporter. “Not that the great Greta was not great ... so far as the limitations of her part would permit. But Crawford has the feminine meat of the show and how she does take advantage of it.” A headline in Variety a few weeks later underscored the real problem: ‘GARBO NOSIGN, JOAN MAY ROMP IN M-G's HOTEL.'
 

The premier of Grand Hotel

In late April 1932, the gala opening of Grand Hotel was held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. To celebrate the event, black-tie suppers and dinner parties were held at various homes and restaurants throughout Los Angeles, with guests transported by special limousines to the five-dollar top-ticket event at the theatre. On hand where five hundred policemen to protect the two thousand invited guests from twenty thousand fans lining the streets and sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard, a number of stars and top executives from MGM and rival studio Warner Bros attended. Each star was asked to sign in at the Grand Hotel register.

Film poster

“Do we need luggage?” the cheeky Miss Harlow asked, as a stampede erupted on the street outside, signalling the arrival of one of the stars of the picture – Joan Crawford. “Sunburned as a berry, dressed in an electric blue dress, with her hair in the new ‘bangs style', Joan's eyes sparkled and her voice choked with emotion when anyone spoke to her.”

Escorted by her Price, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, the star waved to the fans, smiled demurely at the handsome policemen, then signed her name on the shirt-fronts and hatbands of some of the men who mobbed her in the lobby. Greta Garbo was not expected to show, said director Edmund Goulding. “She has a fear of crowds, a psychosis that is increasing instead of lessening,” he observed.