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| The hotel where "nothing ever happens." |
Release Date: Apr. 12, 1932. Running Time: 112 minutes. Screenplay: William A. Drake. Based on the play by: William A. Drake; based on the novel, Menschen im Hotel, by Vicki Baum. Producer: Irving Thalberg. Director: Edmund Goulding.
THE PLOT:
Berlin's Grand Hotel attracts the moneyed and the titled - and the desperate. Current guests include: Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo), a famous ballerina teetering on the brink of depression; Baron von Geigern (John Barrymore), the self-described black sheep of his family who has made a deal with criminals to steal Grusinskaya's pearl necklace; Preysing (Wallace Beery), an industrialist on the brink of bankruptcy; and Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), an accountant dying of an unspecified illness who has withdrawn every penny he has saved so that he can spend his final days in luxury.
In ordinary circumstances, most of these people would barely brush up against each other. But when the baron falls in love with Grusinskaya and renounces his plan to rob her, it sets off a chain of events that will directly or indirectly impact them all!
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| Ballerina Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) falls for her would-be thief (John Barrymore), |
CHARACTERS:
Grusinskaya: "I wish to be alone." Greta Garbo's signature line comes in a performance that is more than a little over-the-top, but I'd argue that's a correct approach for this character. Grusinskaya lives her life in extremes. When she is depressed, she is actively suicidal; when she is happy, she literally dances around her room, refusing to sit still or sleep. Simply put: Underplaying wouldn't be the way to go with this role.
Garbo does often feel like she's in a different movie from everyone else, but I think this is by design. Grusinskaya is surrounded by servants and associates who are determined to insulate her. She spends the entire movie either in her room or being moved at great haste to the theatre. When a significant event occurs at the movie's end, her servants actively shield her from it, and she ends the movie in ignorance of anything outside her direct line of sight.
Baron Felix von Geigern: Greta Garbo may be "The Star," but John Barrymore is very much this movie's anchor as the gentlemanly would-be thief. Garbo barely interacts with any of her co-stars; Barrymore interacts with all of them. Von Geigern is constantly friendly and charming, though that disguises his desperation. He needs money as a literal matter of life and death. In one scene, he becomes tempted by his friend Kringelein's pocketbook, which is left lying out on the floor. Only Kringelein's panic when he realizes that he's lost it keeps the baron from absconding with it.
Flaemmchen: Joan Crawford is the stenographer employed to assist Preysing with a critical meeting. Her youth and beauty catch his eye, and he eventually proposes an "arrangement" with her... offering too much money for her to refuse, even though she despises him. It's easy to forget how good an actress Joan Crawford was before her descent into self-parody, and her performance here is outstanding. She's the anti-Garbo, communicating her character's feelings with small shifts in facial expression and body language, and her final scenes are all the more powerful for being dominated by the look in her eyes.
Preysing: The closest thing the movie has to a villain. He's a man who has failed upward, projecting success through bluster and bullying while he's actually on the verge of insolvency. It's no surprise when we eventually learn that his financial straits are his own fault, as his ex-bookkeeper scoffs that he'd be fired for his financial mistakes if he was anyone other than the boss. Wallace Beery is letter-perfect, projecting just the right mix of bravado and moral weakness to make Preysing loathsome, yet at the same time all too human.
Otto Kringelein: The "Everyman" character. Kringelein has spent his life working hard and scrimping and saving, as would have been true of most of the contemporary audience. He worked for decades for Preysing, and he has exactly two items on his wishlist: To live his last days in luxury, and to tell Preysing exactly what he thinks of him before the end. He exults about how much he's finally enjoying life - but when he loses his pocketbook, he shows his awareness of how fragile his situation is: "Nobody ever gives you anything for nothing. You have to buy everything, and pay cash for it... Every hour costs money."
Dr. Otternschlag: The disfigured World War I veteran who sharply observes the goings-on. In contrast to the desperate activity of the other characters, Dr. Otternschlag always seems very still. It's clear that his wartime experiences haunt him, while he seems to regard the present as a sort of semi-reality: "A hundred doors leading to one hall. No one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed... That's the end."
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| Meek Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) attempts to confront blustery industrialist Preysing (Wallace Beery). |
THOUGHTS:
For much of the first half of Grand Hotel, I was bored. I didn't particularly connect with the characters, and I shared a little too much sympathy with Dr. Otternschlag's remark that bookends the film: "Grand Hotel, always the same... Nothing ever happens."
Gradually, I found myself pulled in, and often by the oddest moments. Preysing, bluffing to the representatives of a company he desperately needs to merge with in order to survive. Baron von Geigern, so determined to see that Kringelein has a good time drinking and dancing even as he himself is in desperate straits. By the time Kringelein finally confronts Preysing, I was hooked.
That scene, which happens just past the halfway mark, is a particularly good one, because it doesn't play out as expected. Kringelein doesn't get to have a "hero moment" in which he unequivocally shows up the industrialist. Instead, Preysing barely notices him as anything other than a nuisance, repeatedly swatting away his words as he focuses more on preparing his proposition to Flaemmchen. Kringelein finally gets out what he has to say, but Preysing seems more bewildered than anything, and even after that seems to see the man as an employee to be bullied... a mistake that costs him at the end.
The characters are well-realized, and in their desperation they reflect each other sufficiently to make for a unified film. Baron von Guigern is too proud to accept money from either Grusinskaya or Kringelein, but he briefly attempts to steal from both of them, only changing his mind once he sees their pain. Preysing tries to project success, and mostly succeeds in making himself look more pathetic. Which doesn't stop him from treating Flaemmchen like a possession even before she agrees to his arrangement, denouncing any interference by Kringelein or von Geigern as "impertinence."
The Great Depression is only vaguely alluded to, when a rival tells Preysing that this is "a very bad time" for a business crisis. Nevertheless, it hangs over this film and its presentation. The movie cannily plays to preconceptions of the upper classes: The business magnate is a fraud; the aristocratic Baron is a penniless criminal; the fading celebrity is both depressed and cut off from the rest of the world; the working class girl is exploited. This is high-gloss soap opera, but a close watch of it reveals it as anything but happy escapism.
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| An oblivious Grusinskaya exults in the sun, |
OVERALL:
Producer Irving Thalberg effectively created the all star ensemble picture with Grand Hotel, and that cast rises to the occasion by delivering uniformly excellent performances. I found the movie initially hard to connect with. However, as I watched, I became sucked in, and the film itself actually improves the more I turn it over in my mind. The script is expertly constructed, the varying threads bumping into each other just enough to enhance them without actively distracting from any single thread.
Like a lot of older movies, it demands a certain degree of patience. But particularly in its second half, the movie rewards that patience with a deceptively rich moviegoing experience.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
Outstanding Production - 1930/1931: Cimarron
Outstanding Production - 1932/1933: Cavalcade
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