Grand Hotel

Grand Hotel

The 5th movie to win Best Picture. The story of the comings and goings of people at a luxurious hotel in Berlin. The movie mostly focuses on The Baron who is friendly and charmes almost everyone. We come to find out that he is a gambler and a thief and his only reason for being at the hotel is steal some pearls from a famous ballerina. The rest of the cast of characters are just a interesting. Especially Mr. Kringelein who is dying and decides to spend his savings and his last precious time living life to the fullest. He even gets to confront the owner of the company that he worked for who also happens to be staying in the hotel.

The appeal of the movie during the original release was the cast. It had some of MGM’s largest stars of the time and was considered financially risky because of the large salaries paid to the stars. Guess it would be similar to Oceans 11 today,lets see how many big name stars we can get into one movie. The two biggest stars in it are the two female actresses Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo. Also in the movie are the brothers John and Lionel Barrymore who are the grandfather and grand-uncle of Drew Barrymore. It seems like the behind the scenes of the movie might be more interesting then the movie. Apparently Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford did not get along and the never appeared in a single scene together so neither one could upstage the other, and after initial previews MGM went and added more scenes of Greta Garbo so it didn't seem like Joan Crawford was the star of the movie.

The first time I watched this movie a few years ago I must have been real tired and fell asleep or just wasn't paying attention. I remember thinking the movie made no sense. But this time I paid attention and actually followed the movie. I found out its really not that bad. The characters were really interesting and I enjoy movies that have multiple characters that meet randomly and we get to see how each one makes a difference in the others life. It reminds me a little of another best picture winner Crash just on a smaller scale. The love stories in the movie were kind of the least interesting part but overall the movie was good. I was reading something online about movies that aged badly over time. It listed this one as an example. While it might not be a great movie it certainly isn't the worst movie, and I don't think it aged that badly.

Interesting note. This is the only movie to win Best Picture that was not nominated for any other Academy Awards. Also AFI had the line "I want to be Alone" as number 50on their 100 Best Lines from movies list(Not sure why, I don't think it was that memorable). Also that year at the Academy Awards Walt Disney won an honorary award for the creation of Mickey Mouse.