Grand Hotel (film)
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| Grand Hotel | |
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 Original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Edmund Goulding |
| Produced by | Paul Bern Irving Thalberg |
| Written by | Vicki Baum (play Menschen im Hotel) William A. Drake Béla Balázs (uncredited) |
| Starring | Greta Garbo John Barrymore Joan Crawford Wallace Beery Lionel Barrymore Lewis Stone Jean Hersholt, Helen Beck |
| Music by | William Axt Charles Maxwell |
| Cinematography | William H. Daniels |
| Editing by | Blanche Sewell |
| Distributed by | MGM |
| Release date(s) | April 12, 1932 |
| Running time | 112 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Grand Hotel is a 1932 pre-Code art deco movie, and is considered as a classic of the genre.
The plot device of the film - bringing together several unrelated couples into one setting - turned out to be so effective that it was re-used over and over in other films and became known as "the Grand Hotel" formula.
The film opens and closes with Lewis Stone's totally unaware statement : "Grand Hotel. People come and go. Nothing ever happens". The comment turns out to be ironic during the few days in which the plot unfolds, because everything seems to be happening at the hotel, from romance to robbery to an accidental death.
The film came from the original Austrian play by Vicki Baum as adapted by William A. Drake and Béla Balázs. It was produced by Irving Thalberg and Paul Bern at MGM (both uncredited on the film), and directed by Edmund Goulding. The top star, Greta Garbo melodramatically delivered her famous line "I want to be alone," in this film. The cast included a series of top names: Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt.
Grand Hotel won the Best Picture Oscar, it is the only film to have won the Award without winning any others and not be nominated in another category. The award was presented to Irving Thalberg, with no mention of Paul Bern. In addition, Garbo's line "I want to be alone" was #30 in the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes.
The film was remade in 1945 as Week-End at the Waldorf starring Ginger Rogers.
[edit] Awards
Academy Award Wins (1932)
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1927–28: Wings, Sunrise | 1928–29: The Broadway Melody | 1929–30: All Quiet on the Western Front | 1930–31: Cimarron | 1931–32: Grand Hotel | 1932–33: Cavalcade | 1934: It Happened One Night | 1935: Mutiny on the Bounty | 1936: The Great Ziegfeld | 1937: The Life of Emile Zola | 1938: You Can't Take It with You | 1939: Gone with the Wind | 1940: Rebecca |
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