Film review: Grand Hotel (1932)

Marlene Dietrich was at one point known as Paramount's answer to MGM's Greta Garbo, and Shanghai Express was also referred to as "Grand Hotel on wheels," so we thought we might follow up on a long-held ambition to watch this one.  And I must say that those nameless known as-ers and referrers were full of it.  First, this is nothing like Shanghai Express (except to the extent that each is star-packed (by the standards of popularity of the actors each studio had under contract), with each character having their own little storyline), and second, although both are glamorous with thick accents, Garbo is a much better actor than Dietrich, who is more a movie star in the way that Arnold Schwarzenegger is - by sheer force of personality.  Garbo, while top billed in this one, isn't really the main focus.  If anyone is, it is John Barrymore, who plays the penniless unlucky gambler Baron Felix von Geigern, and, although (or perhaps because) he was reputed to be the greatest actor of his generation, he's the least showy of all the actors on screen.  Perhaps most showy (and, to be honest, a little annoying) is his brother Lionel, who plays dying prole Otto Kringelein, who, knowing he is dying, is determined to live a little, and has cashed in all his savings to enjoy his remaining time at this, the fanciest hotel in Berlin.  Also chewing the scenery is Wallace Beery, who plays Kringelein's hated boss (in the garment industry) Preysing, who appears decent, or at least honest enough at the beginning of the film, calling home to his wife and children, vowing not to bargain dishonestly for the big contract he has to land to keep the business afloat, but is a thoroughly fallen man at the end.  He always was someone with an inflated sense of self-worth, though, despite only marrying into money and his position, and being (as accountant Kringelein reveals, a pretty inept manager), and it's fitting that Beery plays him, as he himself was widely loathed in the profession.  Beery seems to be the only one affecting a German accent (he does it rather well, I thought) - neither of the Barrymores venture one, despite all playing Germans.  Garbo is playing a Russian, famous dancer Grusinskaya (whom her dance director calls "Gru," which is very incongruous (no pun intended) for those of us who have had to sit through multiple showings of Despicable Me and its sequels), but I'm not sure if she's going for a Russian accent or whether that's her actual Swedish one.  At any rate, she is also putting on a show, but it's appropriate, as the dancer is herself very melodramatic.  This is the film (or at least, one of them) in which Garbo actually says "I want to be alone" as well as complaining of being tired, in a way that reminded Jami of Lili von Shtupp (although we've already decided she's based on Dietrich in Destry Rides Again).  It seems she has lost all confidence in herself and is performing inadequately before rapidly dwindling audiences.  She falls so low that she ducks out of an evening's performance, and on finding out that the audience did not miss her, because her understudy is now at least as good, prepares to kill herself, before being stopped by the Baron, who is hiding in her room having stolen her pearls.  

This precipitates a love between them (to the amazement of both), a renewed self-confidence (leading to an ecstatic audience) in her, and a fiscal crisis in him, as the pearls were to pay of debts he has to a thuggish bookie who keeps hanging around (or more probably his henchman, because he's dressed as a chauffeur).  And we still haven't mentioned the very young Joan Crawford, who is alternatively coquettish, militant and poignant as independent minded but pragmatic stenographer Ms. Flaem, which is pronounced "Phlegm," so maybe it's no surprise she prefers to be known as Flaemmchen.  She also (and first) falls hard for the Baron, 

but has to work for the odious Preysing, 

who is very quickly forgetting his wife and kids and planning an extended trip to London with her as his secretary before tragedy strikes.  One expects tragedy to strike Kringelein, as he keeps passing out, but the dissipated Dr. Otternschlag, who is a longtime resident who keeps checking for messages that never come and half whose face is horribly marked by a grenade from WWI (and whose commentary that "nothing ever happens at the Grand Hotel," that is obviously ironic both opens and closes the film) assures all that it is just from the chilled champagne that Kringelein is sampling for the first time.  (He's also partial to something called a "Louisiana Flip," and, when the Baron introduces him to gambling, 

it emerges he has a real knack for it - unlike the Baron.)  In fact, Kringelein's life is probably peaking at the end of the film, while one character is already dead, and another has not yet learned of the tragedy that will undercut their life.  But at least the wife of Senf, the head porter, has finally safely given birth.

If we're going to compare this one with Shanghai Express some more, I must confess I preferred that one, whereas Jami seems to have liked this one better.  I attribute that to her German-Russian heritage and proclivities, as it's obviously based on a German play, and has a definite heavy-handed Message about Life.  Shanghai, on the other hand, is pure escapism, and that's what I go to the movies for.  This one also seems very stage-bound.  The sets are pretty amazing, 

but we never leave the Hotel, which feels claustrophobic to me, and some of the speeches - especially Kringelein's - drag on rather, even if we are glad when he finally gives Preysing a piece of his mind.  It does seem that there are a lot of adaptations of European plays in the Hollywood films of the 30s (see: The Good Fairy), but this one in particular seems to want to disguise its limited location with sheer star power.  And that the film certainly has is spades.