65-Grand Hotel -Director:Edmund Goulding. - Cast: Greta Garbo,John Barrymore,Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford and Wallace Beery.


"Greta was my favorite actress in the world.For 3 years I'd come out of my dressing room every day,run past hers,and call 'Good Morning!'.I could hear her deep voice talking to her maid but she never did speak to me.I would see her occasionally on the lot.Never a word.Then one morning there was a rush call...I went sprinting past Garbo's dressing room in such a hurry I forgot to yell 'Good Morning'.An instant later I heard her door open,then a resonant :
-'Allooooooooo'

'At last I got to work with Garbo!' "
-Joan Crawford-
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"Everyone knew each other on the set 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 with Joan.Mostly with Joan."
-Edmund Goulding-
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"She (Garbo) was nice to Jack.He was a damned fine actor.That counted.She was concerned with art with a capital A"
-Lionel Barrymore(on Garbo and his brother John)-
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"You are the most entracing woman in the world"
-John Barrymore to Garbo-

"You have no idea what it means to me to play opposite so perferct an artist."
-Garbo to John Barrymore-
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"On January 14 there was snow in Los Angeles,and John Barrymore was waiting on the set at nine to Garbo to arrive for their first day of work together.After waiting for more than 20 minutes,he was growing a bit irritated.Suddenly a prop-boy approached him."I didn't know you were here Mr.Barrymore.",said the boy."Miss Garbo has been waiting outside the door since nine o'clock to escort you onto the set.It was an honor she wanted to pay you".Barrymore followed him to the door of the soundstage,where he greeted Garbo with the salutation:"My wife and I think you're the loveliest person in the world". "This is a great day for me",Garbo responded."How I have looked forward to working with John Barrymore!".
-from the beautiful book

Greta Garbo: A Cinematic Legacy by Mark A. Vieira

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Joan Crawford:Have you ever met her?
interviewer:No
Joan Crawford:Oh,you would be breathless.You couldn't stand it...She was so beautiful.She was so wonderful...
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"She is a fine lady and a great actress.And the rest is silence"
-John Barrymore on Garbo-
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"A production worthy of all the talk it has created and severel motion picture luminaries deserve to feel proud of their performances,particularly Lionel Barrymore and Greta Garbo."
-The New Your Times(1932)-
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"Here Greta Garbo has achieved something which few people expected of her.She has fitted herself into a play and into a cast and has rendered a great performance exactly at the point where the role was contrary to her own being.The twittering,laughing,hopping about in the tarlatan of a ballet skirt is certainly not what Greta would have sought out as her role.But she has accomplished it.She's gone the whole way from her first words,"I have never been so tired in my life",to the last words,"It will be sunny in Tremezzo.We'll have a guest,Suzette".That dead-tired face in the beginning--where did Greta get those small,sad lines around her mouth and forehead?Then the face in which--between laughter and tears--love awakens.That face full of wanton joy when she is happy.That face full of fear when she waits for her beloved in vain.Unforgettable!Thank you,Greta Garbo!"
-Vicki Baum-(the author of Grand Hotel,who by the way,managed to get her ass kicked out of the set by Garbo while the movie was being shot)
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"---Garbo forever remained Hepburn's favorite movie star."I think she was a great actress.But even more than that,she carried so much mystery with her.From the moment she walked on the screen,you simply couldn't take your eyes of her,you wanted to know everything about her,and you knew she wasn't going to give it to you.That's a movie star. And that's what we all wanted to be".
-Katharine Hepburn- from Kate Remembered by A. Scott Berg


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Grand Hotel happens when I want to fall in love with movies all over again.It's quite possibly the most underrated American film,and it is also one of the most influential.One of the most ridiculous chapters in Cinema History is the failure of American critics, and most critics/film-people in general(including the New Wave),to see and discuss the great influence this movie had in Hollywood and especially in French Cinema.Mostly, Jean Renoir's Cinema.Because I would go as far(and with no doubt in my mind) as calling Grand Hotel the core of his masterpiece,'The Rules of the Game'.

The first all-star-cast in movie history makes the movie shines even brighter. And I can't express how much I love every single one of them.When did you see Lionel Barrymore being less than fantastic in anything?All this with a magical atmosphere and that wonderful music that doesn't stop playing.But while watching the movie you can feel some sort of awareness of what is going on among the cast.Like Crawford told in her later years,sure there was competition.To get out of this intact was a victory,to up-stage someone was heaven.And one of them hides in the shadows,showing the most extravagant gestures that only the most bored person in the world would show, and managed to look more distant than ever even in the close-ups.I can't remember how many times I watched to see,and try to understand, what Greta Garbo is doing and what the hell she was thinking in this particular performance.Usually acting works better on a first-time basis.The opposite happens with great movies.The more you watch, the more you'll find new things about it and the more you will like it. Great acting usually will fade away or will not have the same impact in the long run and with repetitive viewings.Not in this case.Because maybe this is just magic.And even having the worst lines out of the screenplay -cowardly- Garbo decided to walk all over everybody by achieving one of her famous 'god-only-knows-what'.Something they just couldn't.Because most people in front of a movie camera,even the greatest movie stars,are just normal people.She wasn't.
-Me-
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"Lucifer understands love better than anybody. You know he's done a mean tango with Greta Garbo a few times. "
-Tori Amos-
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"I can't think of anyone who would be as great to look at like that, not even a hundred years forward."
-Ingrid Thulin-

64-Once Upon a Time in the West - Director:Sergio Leone. Cast: Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards and Charles Bronson.


"Sergio was a real go-getter, a very meticulous artist who paid attention to everything he did, right down to the smallest details,For the images, he asked for things that were truly effective: full light for long shots because he wanted the details to be visible on screens of all sizes, and close-ups with the individual hairs of the characters’ beards visible. It was impossible in Spain — he wanted deep, long shadows, the deepest and longest we could get, and the [sun went] down late. On the set, we prepared in the morning, and then we just died waiting for the right light. I did everything I could to accommodate him within the limits of what was possible. And then there were the details! He wanted to shoot the actors’ eyes in every scene. I told him we could shoot 100 meters of eyes — looking here, looking there — and then use them whenever he wanted. But he wasn’t having any of that. And that’s how it went for the entire shoot. But his three-hour films pass quickly [when you watch them]. A three-hour film made today is a chore to sit through."
-Tonino Delli Colli (cinematographer)-


"He gave back to the actors from USA the confidence that a Western can be a great movie."
-Bernardo Bertolucci-


"I can't see America any other way than with a European's eyes, obviously; it fascinates me and terrifies me at the same time"
-Sergio Leone-


"Sergio Leone asked me to do a film and sent me a script I just couldn't believe it.And I met him, had lunch with him.And I hadn't seen his early films so I didn't know Sergio Leone's reputation.And he realized that I hadn't seen it,so he arranged for a screening,and I saw about 3 1/2 hours of his early pictures with Clint Eastwood.And one of them involved an actor friend of mine( Eli Wallach).And I called him,and he said,"Don't miss it,just go.To hell with the script,just go.You'll fall in love with him.He's marvelous." So I accepted.And in the months before I went,I kept thinking,now...this heavy son of a bitch...how am I going to...?I finally went to an optometrist and had contact lenses made to make my baby blues(eyes) brown.And I grew a mustache,with a little divot that looked a little bit like the guy who shot Lincoln.I'm trying to look like a son of a bitch....And I arrived at the studio in Rome,and Sergio takes one look at me me and says,"-OFF".He was buying the baby blues.He wanted and I didn't know why."
-Henry Fonda-

"Picture this: the camera shows a gunman from the waist down pulling his gun and shooting a running child. The camera pans up to the gunman's face and... it's Henry Fonda!!!"
-Sergio Leone-


"The real stars, though, are Leone's camera, going eye-to-eye with his actors or tracking through the labyrinth of his invented West, and Ennio Morricone's score—arguably the richest in movie history"
-Richard Schickel-