In Grand Hotel (1932), Joan Crawford played Flaemmchen, a young stenographer who dreams of a better life in Berlin’s grand hotel. Directed by Edmund Goulding, the film brought together an all-star cast — Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery — in interwoven stories set over two days.
Flaemmchen is ambitious and pragmatic, and Crawford played her with a youthful energy that stood out even among such a cast. Her scenes with John Barrymore’s Baron, who falls in love with her, are among the film’s most memorable.
Grand Hotel won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it remains a landmark of the early 1930s — a film in which Crawford held her own alongside Hollywood’s greatest stars.