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Grand Hotel, sort of a review,.
Apr. 8th, 2021 06:09 pmLast night we were lucky enough to catch Grand Hotel (1932) on TCM. Not only was it the first real ensemble film, but it was also one of the first movies to weave interacting plots together. It really was the first great intersecting lives movie.
I was especially taken by the opening sequence, which started at the busy switchboard of Berlin's Grand Hotel, which was followed by a nearly seamless shot with the camera behind the front desk as various characters check-in, make demands, and set the stage.
The plots themselves are complex, involving a Baron fallen on hard times, a jaded ballerina, a functionary who has a hair time to live, an industrial magnate teetering on the edge of ruin, and a stenographer looking for a better life. All of their lives intertwine and change the course of each other. It's a brilliant script.
Bookending the movie is Doctor Otternschlag, a disfigured veteran of the Great War and resident at the Grand Hotel, who observes at the start of the film that "People coming, going. Nothing ever happens." At the end of the film, after lives have been changed and one life ended, he morosely observes, "Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens."
I've known about this film for years and never had the chance to see it. It really is amazing and is the source of all those Greta Garbo "I want to be alone" memes, She says it in the film. Three times.
I was especially taken by the opening sequence, which started at the busy switchboard of Berlin's Grand Hotel, which was followed by a nearly seamless shot with the camera behind the front desk as various characters check-in, make demands, and set the stage.
The plots themselves are complex, involving a Baron fallen on hard times, a jaded ballerina, a functionary who has a hair time to live, an industrial magnate teetering on the edge of ruin, and a stenographer looking for a better life. All of their lives intertwine and change the course of each other. It's a brilliant script.
Bookending the movie is Doctor Otternschlag, a disfigured veteran of the Great War and resident at the Grand Hotel, who observes at the start of the film that "People coming, going. Nothing ever happens." At the end of the film, after lives have been changed and one life ended, he morosely observes, "Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens."
I've known about this film for years and never had the chance to see it. It really is amazing and is the source of all those Greta Garbo "I want to be alone" memes, She says it in the film. Three times.
