Grand Hotel (1932)

Grand Hotel takes place in the ritziest hotel in all of Berlin and is the first film to have an "all-star" cast featuring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore (Drew Barrymore's grandfather).  Basically it's about a whole bunch of people staying at the Grand Hotel.  Lionel Barrymore is a dying factory worker shedding his remaining dollars at a few nights living amongst the wealthy, Greta Garbo is an over-dramatic ballet dancer, John Barrymore portrays a penniless Baron, Wallace Beery plays a heartless tycoon, and Joan Crawford is the stenographer/high class hooker.  All of the following characters come together into a melodramatic ending, in the best way.

I actually really enjoyed this movie.  I found 75% of the to be an excellent character study and the last 25% booming with sudden plot.  It takes a little bit of time to introduce all the characters but it's well worth it.  Lionel Barrymore is fantastic in his portrayal of a dying lower class citizen trying to fit in with the hoity-toity upper class.  He is such an endearing character who sees only the best in the crazies around him.  But to me, Greta Garbo takes the cake.  She is a diva ballerina to the core.  And being in theatre my whole life- I know a diva.  At first she won't perform and when everyone accepts that, she becomes depressed that no one loves her.  She demands constant affection and John Barrymore is totally willing to give it to her- plus she's rich and he's not- so win/win?  Joan Crawford was sort of meh to me.  I was expecting a little more.  However, it sounds like off camera she was focusing on pissing Greta Garbo off.  Crawford was miffed that Garbo got top billing so she showed up late and played Marlene Dietrich records which Garbo loathed.  But then when I found out that they added extra scenes of Garbo so Crawford didn't shine as brightly, I was a little more understanding.  Ah, the drama! 

I don't have too much to say about Grand Hotel as Katie pretty much covered it. While I may not have liked or shared quite the same enthusiasm that Katie did for this movie, it was certainly still enjoyable and I very much appreciated it. As Katie said, this is one of the first of the all-star casts that seemed to set the template for similar ensemble pieces by the likes of Robert Altman or P.T. Anderson (and refreshingly without the pretentiousness of some, but certainly not all, of their films) and thusly the acting was very impressive. Garbo is a good actress pretending to be a bad actress that thinks she's a good actress of sorts which seems impossible to pull off but she does it marvelously, and Lionel Barrymore alternated seamlessly between pitiful to cute to sad to hilarious in the blink of an eye. A surprising plot turn near the end seems to come from nowhere (although it could have been a solid film-noir with some minor modifications except that genre had hardly been invented yet) and it takes arguably too long of a time for the lead characters' plots to converge, but the conclusion is satisfying and the movie as a whole is quite good. Grand Hotel still gets my recommendation, just not my highest one.

Grand Hotel is the only Best Picture Oscar winner not to be nominated for any other Academy Awards.

"Grand Hotel... always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens."