GRAND HOTEL (1932)

Churning romantic folly, delicious right from its snazzy opening credits laying out Hollywood star-pecking order, circa 1932.  (Check poster to see who tops whom).  Garbo is doubly lauded: first-billed/last to appear on screen.  (Not till reel three; backed by a swell of Rachmaninoff.)  Visually clever fugal opening with figures in telephone booths filling us in on the back-story.  (Edmund Goulding’s direction surprisingly peppy for M-G-M, heightened by William Daniels’ dark-toned portraiture & overhead views.)  Then, a half a dozen life-or-death stories playing out simultaneously, seamlessly moving from lobby to upper floor suites, with stops for character revelation at the cocktail lounge and the dance floor.  Garbo’s ballet diva on the edge of collapse.  John Barrymore’s charming, penniless Baron hoping to rob only to be robbed of his heart.  Brother Lionel’s dying clerk, a rube among swells, out for a final fling with his savings.  (Look sharp for a small acting miracle when John confesses to this new acquaintance that he has no friends.)  Modern gal Joan Crawford, a secretary for hire (with benefits) to coarse, flailing industrialist Wallace Beery.  Lewis Stone’s disfigured doctor, watching life from the sidelines.  And Jean Hersholt as the hotel manager worrying about a wife in hospital having a difficult delivery.  Much of the drama, as well as the acting, now looks faintly ridiculous, not at all like the beloved Golden Age Hollywood films that still ‘tell’ in remarkably up-to-date ways.  (Especially those, like this, from the early ‘30s Pre-Code era.)  But one of the glories of this film is how it somehow lets us rediscover for ourselves what audiences of the day felt about all these glamorous/fatalistic comings and goings.  Even lines that now make you giggle (or gasp) in disbelief manage to make their dramatic mark.  Almost in spite of itself, the film remains consistently compelling.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  To a large extent, the formula is repeated in next year’s DINNER AT EIGHT/’33.  But in a dramatic vehicle with a far more modern, even ironic edge.  The two films nicely summing up the difference between HOTEL producer Irving Thalberg and DINNER’s David O. Selznick.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/11/dinner-at-eight-1933.html