Grand Hotel

More than 70 years later and it stood the test of time. Edmund Goulding directs the movie which starts at a slower pace but towards as things proceed, pace picks up. Greta Garbo was definitely the star of the time but here she's quite a drama queen. It's Joan Crawford who gives the best performance (and has a more fleshed out role than Garbo). The actress indeed has a stronger presence than Garbo and she's simply terrific. Lionel Barrymore and John Barrymore are equally impressive. Lionel is particularly good in balancing his characters tragedy and comedy. The supporting cast is adequate.

The cinematography is amazing as it gives us a marvelous glare of the grandness of the Grand Hotel, the overhead shot of the operators who're connecting the incoming calls, and then focussing on the different characters who're all either desperate for money, happiness or nothing (as they are satisfied with what they have e.g. the head hotel clerk). Everyone is shown to be busy with their own individual life and this is further stressed on in the final scene.

In addition to that, the set designs are spectacular reflecting the indifferent atmosphere and the beauty of the hotel. The reference to the War is also put in a very subtle way (as the film was made in the 30s) through the Baron's story and the scar on the doctor's face. Some might be bored in the beginning (due to the slow pace) but just bear with it, the film does get better and one will indeed understand why it stood the test of time. A grand classic it is indeed!

A drunk doctor, an eccentric dancer, a high-class thief, a businessman, his mistress and a terminally-ill bookkeeper cross paths in "Grand Hotel", the Best Picture Oscar winner from 1932. One of the first true soap operas ever produced by Hollywood follows an array of colorful characters as they all stay at a luxury hotel in 1930s Germany. Sub-stories, amazing performances and a clever screenplay keep this very large film above water. The film is also a strange footnote in Oscar history as it was only nominated for Best Picture and won that honor. Edmund Goulding became only the second of three people to direct a Best Picture winner and not be nominated himself (William A. Wellman for "Wings" in 1928 and Bruce Beresford for "Driving Miss Daisy" in 1989 are the only other two). The all-star cast acts as an ensemble with John and Lionel Barrymore making the biggest impressions on the audience. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Setting aside the fact that this is a landmark in the history of Hollywood, it has an unintended effect of foreshadowing the Second World War. GRAND HOTEL, filmed in 1932, is set in a luxury hotel in contemporary Berlin. There are several moments (during scenes with the disfigured doctor in particular) when characters refer to their sacrifices in the First World War. The most pointed remark runs something like "we won battle after battle, only to be told we'd lost the war.") At the time this film was made, Hitler was about a year and a half away from becoming Chancellor. GRAND HOTEL, based on a work by Vicki Baum, who wrote for a German readership, is less a story of the idle rich and the poor who serve them than an observation of the quiet rage stealing over a society whose war wounds only seem to deepen as time passes. Wallace Beery's character, a corrupt industrialist, was, in 1932, a staple of German art and theatre. An American audience in 1932 would merely have seen him as a fat-cat, but, in the Weimar Republic, particularly just before the Nazis took power, such a stereotype was provocative. Watching GRAND HOTEL with a sense of what was about to happen in Germany, one sees not so much a sophisticated soap-opera as a macabre meditation on the genteel side of a very dark phase in history.

Vicky Baum's novel "Menschen I'm Hotel" serves as the basis for this 1932 film that was a vehicle for Greta Garbo. "Grand Hotel", as directed by Edmund Golding, was a magnificent film that had a lot of first class stars of the era in prominent roles. In fact, this seems to be one of the first films to have relied in the prominent "names" it gathered to portray the different characters in the movie.

By today's standards, the film is dated, but for a discriminating film fan, "Grand Hotel" is a classic because of the star turns one witnesses. Also, today's fans have to make concessions for the style of acting that was prevalent at the time. The movies have begun "talking" not long before this film was made and the stars of those silents were still doing their acting in front of the camera as though no one was going to hear them talk. In fact, most of the complaints in comments submitted to this forum would have been different if this was 1932 and the film had just come out.

The best advice for anyone new to this film is to sit back, relax, and enjoy the trials and tribulations of the people seen at Berlin's Grand Hotel.

The biggest surprise of the film is the shortness of Greta Garbo presence in the film, in which for some unknown reason, she looms large above the rest of the players. As the Russian ballerina Grusinskaya, Ms. Garbo played one of the best characters of her career. Her way of acting is still imbued with what was expected of her.

John Barrymore as the Baron Von Geigern, the impoverished nobleman, is key to the story. The moment he meets the great Grusinskaya, he is lost forever. Lionel Barrymore is excellent as the poor Otto Kringelein, who thinks he is going to die real soon. Joan Crawford, is the stenographer Flaemmchen who seems to arise passion among all the men she meets. Ms. Crawford does excellent work in a role she discarded later on in favor of more dramatic appearances.

What makes "Grand Hotel" the timeless classic it became is the magnificent camera work by William H. Daniels, a man who knew how to get the best out of Greta Garbo in their many films together. Also the music which is from Franz Lehar's "The Merry Widow" serves as a nice distraction in the background.

The most famous phrase in the film "I want to be alone", seems prophetic in retrospect as the divine Garbo had about eight more years in the movies.

I've seen "Grand Hotel" at least fifteen times -- more than any other '30s film with the possible exception of two other classics: "King Kong" and Astaire and Rogers' "The Gay Divorcee."

Quite a few others reviewers here have commented negatively on this "creaky" old film. They are correct -- it is -- and yet, who cares? It's utterly wonderful!

The whole cast is superb -- charming, desperate, vulnerable John Barrymore; cynical, sad, appealing Joan Crawford; pathetic, whining, irrepressible Lionel Barrymore; coarse, selfish, all-too-humanly cruel Wallace Beery; and of course, the great Greta Garbo. The supporting cast, led by Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt, are equally good.

Those who criticize Garbo as over-the-top in her portrayal of the prima ballerina are right. She IS over-the-top, AND she is absolutely glorious, whether wallowing in self-pitying, suicidal despair or radiant as the spring with a new love which astonishes and transports her. What a unique, unforgettable screen presence! What a Goddess!

"Grand Hotel" holds this viewer, anyway, entranced from beginning to end. In addition to the superlative acting, the art deco design is stunning and the music always appropriate.

Creaky? You bet. Do they make movies like this anymore? Nope. Do I wish they did? I sure do.