Rating of
2.5/4
Review - Grand Hotel (1932)
Delorted - wrote on 11/15/07
“Grand Hotel, always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.” What Dr. Otterschlag (Lewis Stone) doesn’t seem to realize is that anything but “nothing” happens in the Grand Hotel, for romance, robbery and more await in the Best Picture winning film, “Grand Hotel.”
The stories follow thief Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore) and Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford) as they fall in love, while the Baron also steals the heart of performer Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) while stealing her pearl necklace. We also follow the life of a dying man, Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) as he has the time of his life before his death.
The stories in the film are very involved, while at the same time not very interesting. Many films since have tried to copy its format of putting unrelated people in one place and having them discover things about each other they never would have known otherwise. Even today this has become more and more of a trend with television shows and movies alike. While I respect the film for such a great contribution to film, I don’t think this particular film is much by itself.
I don’t mean to say that it is a bad film by any means. “Grand Hotel” just doesn’t have the entertainment value that it feels it should. The film uses classical music to give it a hotel feel, and there are some interesting camera angles that I believe may have inspired Hitchcock, but none of this adds up to the film being entertaining enough.
I really don’t have much to say about this film. I find it interesting that it not only got a single Oscar for Best Picture, but it had in fact only that one single nomination. I think The Academy felt the same way I do about this film: it’s wonderful, but not too wonderful.
Acting: 7/10
Writing: 7/10
Video/Editing: 6/10
Audio/Music: 7/10
Entertainment: 6/10
Final Score: 6.6/10
