In a masterpiece of set design and art decoration, director Edmund Goulding creates an atmosphere at once intensely realistic and allegorical. The claustrophobic picture of European grandeur in its last, pre-fascist gasps is enhanced by the ensemble cast: Greta Garbo as a world-weary prima donna; Joan Crawford as a sensuous stenographer with an eye on Wallace Beery’s pocketbook; Lionel Barrymore as a bookkeeper exploring the potentials of his terminal illness; and John Barrymore as a roguish baron who lightens Garbo’s load for a brief moment. Love, greed, death, cynicism—not in that order—intermingle freely within the rooms of the Grand Hotel, Berlin.