Grand Hotel/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • All-Star Cast: In addition to Greta Garbo, there's also John Barrymore and his brother Lionel, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford and Lewis Stone. In fact, Grand Hotel was one of the first true "all-star cast" films.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: Inverted; While some think that Greta Garbo's "I want to be alone" line doesn't exist, it not only exists but it is in this film.
    • The confusion has probably arisen from a quote Garbo made herself in Real Life where she claimed that she never said that she wanted to be alone, but rather, that she wanted to be let alone.
  • Fake Nationality: The German characters are played by American actors.
  • What Could Have Been: Buster Keaton was up for the Lionel Barrymore part. Garbo wanted her old boyfriend John Gilbert, a silent star whose career (like Keaton's) was in decline, to play the Baron.