Hotel (film)

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Movie poster for Hotel

Hotel is a 1967 film adaptation of the novel Hotel written by Arthur Hailey. The film stars Rod Taylor, Catherine Spaak, Karl Malden, and Melvyn Douglas.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Peter McDermott involves himself not only in the overtures by two different buyers, he also takes an interest in the upper-class European guest.

One of the buyers, O'Keefe, intends to renovate and "modernize" the hotel, with conveyor belts carrying luggage automatically around the building like it were some sort of modern airport terminal, and even presenting the customer's bill on a conveyor belt.

Meanwhile, a professional thief is still working the hotel, barely staying ahead of the staff when he is spotted, snagging guests' keys with female accomplices. He blithely talks himself out of one tough spot by grabbing an ordinary-looking attache case, gets to a room, calms his pounding heart, then uses one of his key collection to open the case to see what minor baubles he might have acquired — but its full of cash. Counting himself lucky to take retirement (at least temporarily), he heads for the elevator to leave.

One of the elevators acted up again earlier, as reported by one of the elevator attendants. Relays are a little slow, the mechanic notes, saying he will tighten them up tonight. About this time, the owner decides to sell the hotel to the man who will demolish it. A group of people, including the thief and the man he stole the attache case from (not recognizing it as his own), get into the elevator.

The elevator does not behave right after the attendant closes the door and starts to descend. It drops a bit, then a bit more. It is definitely on the fritz, and a bell starts to ring. McDermott looks up the shaft and then he and another person take the adjacent elevator up to the same level. They transfer passengers through the roof, the thief being one of the last off but told by the attache case owner to leave the case behind. Before that last person can get off, the brakes fail and the car goes plunging to the bottom.