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Grand Hotel Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 22 Reviews)

star-studded movie masterpiece
Suggested by Vicki Baum's book "Menschem im Hotel" and the Broadway play by William A. Drake, GRAND HOTEL remains to this day one of M-G-M's most delightful and lavish films. With a hand-picked cast from it's peerless roster of stars and top direction from Edmund Goulding, the film still casts a powerful spell today.

The setting is Berlin's Grand Hotel in the 1930s. Staying at the luxurious hotel is penniless Baron von Guigern (John Barrymore), ruthless magnate General Preysing (Wallace Beery), ambitious stenographer Miss Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford), fragile prima ballerina Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) and Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) a dying man on his last fling. It's fascinating to watch these characters and their stories merge and intertwine.

The performances are sublime. Garbo is perfect for the remote and disillusioned Grusinskaya, suddenly woken back to life when she falls in love with the Baron. Lionel Barrymore is heartbreaking as gentle Otto. Joan Crawford is a hoot as the stenographer with Hollywood dreams and a shady past. The chemistry between Garbo and John Barrymore fairly crackles and their scenes together are some of the best in the entire picture.

It's here that Garbo first uttered those five little words which would define her for the rest of her life - "I want to be alone". The cast also includes Lewis Stone as the Doctor and Jean Hersholt as the desk-clerk.

The DVD contains some great bonuses like a new Making-of documentary, footage from the lavish premiere and a rare Vitaphone musical short "Nothing Ever Happens" which is an hilarious parody of GRAND HOTEL.

"I want to be alone."
What can one say? The acting is terrible, the script a bomb - yet it's one of the best of the old Hollywood "star" vehicles, and the predecessor of a thousand immitations. Garbo is the dancer who has "never been so tired" in her life; John Barrymore the good-hearted baron desperate for money who falls in love with her; Lionel Barrymore the dying man splurging on his last go-round; Joan Crawford the stenographer and worldly woman; and Wallace Beery the industrial magnate. Their lives intermingle for one day and night at the Grand Hotel in Berlin, with tragic results for Garbo, John Barrymore, and Beery, and reprieve for Lionel Barrymore and Crawford.

The acting (especially Garbo) is so heavy-handed and stiff it's almost a parody of itself, although the lines the actors are forced to speak don't help much. Movie acting, now that sound had been added, hadn't gained the naturalness (unstageyness) yet that would come shortly, and in that regard it's extremely old-fashioned. Beery in his oily role is the most interesting to watch, with Lionel Barrymore a close second. Garbo, though she can be vibrant, even electrifying in her expressions of love and happiness for John Barrymore, would fare much better in later movies. Without a doubt it's a very influential picture, but it's a plush, old dinosaur.

Another must-see MGM masterpiece from the 1930's

Great movies and great stars remain ageless and immortal. Edmund Goulding's GRAND HOTEL (1932, MGM) won a deserved Best Picture Oscar 72 years ago, yet remains fresh and dramatic. This Grand Hotel is in Berlin between the world wars, and its fine cast is full of glittering names that a modern audience should become acquainted with. We have Greta Garbo as a world-weary ballerina. John Barrymore is a jewel thief who sneaks into her hotel room to rob her of jewels to pay off a gambling debt. But he falls in love with her when she is about to attempt suicide. John's brother Lionel is a hyperactive bookkeeper convinced he is in awful health. His boss, Wallace Beery, is in the hotel for a big business merger. Helping him is a very young and charming Joan Crawford as an American stenographer. Jean Hersholt is a hotel porter. And Lewis Stone, later Judge Hardy on the ANDY HARDY series, is the hotel doctor.

There is no real plot here. Instead, we have engrossing character interaction with some of the finest actors of the era. They make GRAND HOTEL a wonderfully entertaining and archetypal drama. Is Lionel Barrymore dying? What happens to him when he runs into boss Beery at the hotel bar? Will John Barrymore really steal Garbo's jewels, even as he falls in love with her? What happens to him with his criminal bosses if he cannot pay off gambling debts? He steals money from poor Lionel during a gambling game, but shortly returns it when he gets a guilty conscience. What happens when he breaks into Beery's room? What happens to Beery's merger? Hersholt's wife gives birth to a baby; we see his excitement in a phone call. And through it all, Stone wanders through the lobby muttering, "Grand Hotel. People coming and going, and nothing ever happens.." Ah, but everything happens if you know where to look in this gorgeous hotel. Everyone has an interesting story to tell in GRAND HOTEL, which inaugurated the "all-star drama in a confined setting" type of movie that is still in vogue with airplanes. Even MGM did a decent remake called WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF (1945) with an all-American cast at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. GRAND HOTEL remains a supreme example of MGM gloss, dazzling star power, and solid writing after more than seven decades.

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