Grand Hotel (1932)

Grand Hotel is a 1932 MGM all-star extravaganza melodrama, but this is not like some of those later all-star movies that actually featured fading stars reduced to doing character parts. Here we have major stars who were either at their peak or rising rapidly - Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore.

The setting is the opulent and glamorous Grand Hotel in Berlin. This is Berlin in the age of Weimar Republic decadence. We get the stories of various guests and they’re a wildly assorted bunch.

Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) is a prima ballerina whose life is falling apart. She feels that her career is in decline. She is right, although that’s largely the result of her own self-doubts, unpredictability and self-destructiveness. She is also no longer sure that her career matters to her. She wants love. She will find love, very unexpectedly.

She finds love in the person of Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore).

The Baron is irresponsible and penniless and he is a jewel thief. He is a rogue, but a loveable rogue. He plans to steal Grusinskaya’s priceless pearl necklace. Instead she steals his heart!

Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) is a dying businessman who wants to have one last adventure and the Grand Hotel seems like the place to be.

He works for, or did work for, General Director Preysing. Preysing (Wallace Beery) is a vulgar but very rich business tycoon on the verge of ruin. He might be vulgar and ruthless but he is honest. That has been his downfall. Now he has succumbed to the temptation to be less than frank with his business partners. Preysing is in the midst of delicate merger negotiations. He has hired a stenographer. A very pretty young stenographer.

The stenographer is Miss Flaemm (Joan Crawford). Her friends call her Flaemmchen.

It was an inspired decision to cast Garbo and Crawford. They give radically different performances, each actress playing to her own strengths. Garbo gives one of her most extravagant performances. She is beautiful, moody, mysterious, tragic, tortured, neurotic and ten times larger than life. Grusinskaya is not a star. She is a Star. She is a tortured artistic genius. Garbo goes way over the top but she knows what she’s doing. This is melodrama. Garbo understood melodrama. She is beautiful and sexy in a very European way.

Joan Crawford is bold, brassy, sassy and sexy in a very American way. The contrast between two totally different acting approaches works because of the kind of movie this is. The characters are all very different people and they have very different stories. Any kind of story can happen in the Grand Hotel. The stories of some of these people will play out as tragedy, some as melodrama, some as romance, some as farce.

John Barrymore is terrific. He could certainly be a ham but in this movie his performance is restrained, subtle and controlled. In 1932 he was still a huge star and a very handsome man.

You can see why Grusinskaya falls head over heels in love with him. The Baron is a scoundrel but he’s charming, sensitive and romantic and he has a doomed tragic vibe that would excite any woman - Grusinskaya knows that her love can save him. And perhaps it can. Anything is possible in the Grand Hotel. The chemistry between John Barrymore and Garbo is extraordinary.

There is plenty of MGM gloss but it’s totally appropriate. Edmund Goulding as director does a very stylish job which makes the most of some wonderful Art Deco-inspired sets by Cedric Gibbons. And you can’t go wrong with Bill Daniels as your cinematographer.

The most pre-code element in the movie is the relationship between Preysing and Flaemmchen. He wants her to go to England with him, as his secretary. It is very clear that most of her duties will be performed in the bedroom. Flaemmchen understands this, and accepts the offer even though he’s a married man. He gets her a room in the Grand Hotel. We are left in no doubt that he expects her to share a bad with him and that she is willing to do so. There is no suggestion that this makes her a bad woman. A girl has to eat.

The characters have their own stories which gradually intersect.

The most surprising thing about this movie is that while it’s glossy it’s not frothy. It has a slightly dark and cynical edge. And there are no storybook happy endings for any of the main characters. Most survive, but they will be left with emotional scars.

The characters have more depth than you expect, and the script has more substance than you might expect. Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and John Barrymore give top-notch performances.

Grand Hotel was a triumph for MGM, cleaning up at the box office and winning the Best Picture Oscar. This is stylish entertainment that has more than mere gloss going for it. Highly recommended.