Greta Garbo, despite her acclaim in films such as Grand Hotel and Ninotchka, made only 28 films across her 21-year career before retiring at just 36. The commercial and critical failure of her final film, Two-Faced Woman (1941), played a significant role in ending her screen career, illustrating how a single poorly received project could derail even the most celebrated star's trajectory in the studio-era Hollywood system.

Directed by George Cukor, the film cast Garbo opposite Melvyn Douglas as a woman who impersonates her own fictitious twin sister to win back her husband, touching on themes of marital independence and infidelity. Its unconventional take on marriage led to bans in New York City, Chicago, Providence and Boston, with the National Legion of Decency condemning it for an "immoral and un-Christian attitude toward marriage". Amid harsh reviews, MGM withdrew the film, re-cut it and reshot scenes to tone down its content, but the revised version still flopped, prompting Garbo's mutual split from the studio. While factors such as the Second World War and anxieties about ageing also discouraged her return, no suitable role ever materialised, leaving Two-Faced Woman as her unintended swansong.