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Grand Hotel Overview:

Grand Hotel (1932) was a Drama - Romance Film directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Irving Thalberg.

The film was based on the novel Menschen im Hotel (People at a Hotel) written by Vicki Baum published in 1929.

SYNOPSIS

The Best Picture of 1932 established the episodic narrative device of following the diverse stories of various characters who drift through a location. It was to be repeated onboard ships, trains, and planes, in apartment buildings, resorts, anywhere the camera could observe comings and goings and the drama inherent in everyday life. Garbo stands out in an outstanding crowd of the screen's great faces as a world-weary ballerina pinning for her jewel-thief lover (John Barrymore). Other stories found in a Berlin hotel where "people come, people go, nothing ever happens" revolve around Lionel Barrymore's imminent death, Crawford's social climber, and Beery's business traveler. One of the greats.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Grand Hotel was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2007.

Academy Awards 1931/32 --- Ceremony Number 5 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best PictureMetro-Goldwyn-MayerWon

Grand Hotel BlogHub Articles:

JOAN CRAWFORD, QUEEN OF THE SILVER SCREEN BLOGATHON: Grand Hotel (1932)

Pale Writer and The Poppity are hosting this blogathon tribute to Joan Crawford on May 11th and 12th. You can share in all the tributes to the amazing actress's career by clicking HERE or HERE. Thank you, Gabriela and Erica D! Vicki Baum's successful 1929 novel Grand Hotel became a popular Broa... Read full article


Grande Hotel (1932) / Grand Hotel (1932)

Grande Hotel (1932) / Grand Hotel (1932) “Grande Hotel” não precisa de propaganda – nem o filme nem o local. O Grande Hotel é o hotel mais caro da Alemanha, como diz o personagem de Lionel Barrymore. “Grande Hotel”, o filme, é uma aula magna sobre o star syste... Read full article


Grand Hotel – Barrymore Trilogy Blogathon

I am pleased to bring you Grand Hotel , my contribution to the Barrymore Trilogy Blogathon hosted by the wonderful Crystal over at IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD. The first time I saw Grand Hotel it was with my dad. He mentioned what a great film it was and since it had so many of my f... Read full article


Grand Hotel (1932)

Grand Hotel (1932) On August 15, 2016 By CarolIn Uncategorized What’s this? Another blogathon? You bet! I love my blogathons and August seems to be filled with them! So when Crystal of In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood announced that she was hosting a Barrymo... Read full article


Pre-Code vs. Post-Code: "Grand Hotel" and "Week-End at the Waldorf"

Vicki Baum's 1929 novel (and play) "Grand Hotel" was purchased by MGM, and in 1932 the studio released a film version featuring all the big shots on the lot -- Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery, with Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt thrown in for good measur... Read full article


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Grand Hotel Quotes:

[to Preysing, after he tries to get 'familiar' with her by asking her to call him by his first name]
Flaemmchen: You know I always say that nothing should be left hanging over. And names are like that. Suppose I met you next year and said, 'How do you do Mr. Preysing?' And you said, 'That's the young lady who was my secretary in Manchester.' That's all quite propper. But supposing I saw you and yelled 'Hi baby. Remember Manchester.'
[he laughs]
Flaemmchen: Yeah, and you were with your wife. How would you like that?

Otto Kringelein: Mr. Preysing, I am not taking orders from you here.
Preysing: What is this insolence? Please go away.
Otto Kringelein: You think you have free license to be insulting? Believe me, you have not. You think you're superior, but you're quite an ordinary man. Even if you did marry money, and people like me have got to slave for you for 320 marks a month!
Preysing: Will you go away, please! You are annoying!
Flaemmchen: Mr. Preysing, please!
Otto Kringelein: You don't like to see me enjoying myself. When a man's working himself to death, that's what he's paid for. You don't care if a man can live on his wages or not.
Preysing: You have a very regular scale of wages, and there's the sick fund for you.
Otto Kringelein: [sarcastically] Oh, what a scale, and what a fund. When I was sick for four weeks, you wrote me a letter, telling me I'd be discharged if I was sick any longer. Did you write me that letter, or did you not?
Preysing: I have no idea of the letters that I write, Mr. Kringelein. I know that you're here in the Grand Hotel, living like a lord. You are probably an embezzler.
Otto Kringelein: [shocked] An embezzler?
Preysing: Yes, an embezzler!
Otto Kringelein: You will take that back, right here in the presence of this young lady! Who do you think you're talking to? You think I'm dirt? Well, if I'm dirt, you're a lot dirtier, Mr. Industrial Magnate Preysing!
Preysing: You're discharged! Get out!
Flaemmchen: You can't do that to him...
Preysing: Oh, I don't know the man. I don't know what he wants. I never saw him before.
Otto Kringelein: I know you! I've kept your books for you and I know all about you! If one of your employees was half as stupid in a small way as you are in a big way...
Preysing: [lunges for Kringelein] What do you mean
[tries to strangle him. When several people try to break them up, he finally lets go]
Preysing: You're discharged! You're discharged, you hear?
Otto Kringelein: Wait! You can't discharge me. I am my own master for the first time in my life. You can't discharge me. I'm sick. I'm going to die, you understand? I'm going to die, and nobady can do anything to me anymore. Nothing can happen to me anymore. Before I can be discharged, I'll be dead!

Dr. Otternschlag: Believe me, Mr. Kringelein, a man who is not with a woman is a dead man.

Dr. Otternschlag: Grand Hotel... always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.

Preysing: I don't know much about women. I've been married for 28 years, you know.
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Grand Hotel Facts
The ensemble cast never actually all appeared together.

Vicki Baum's original play opened in Berlin in February, 1930.

During the filming of the busy lobby scenes, the actors wore socks over their shoes to prevent noise. Reportedly two hundred pairs of woolen socks were worn out daily.

The only Best Picture Oscar winner not to be nominated for any other Academy Awards.

Irving Thalberg originally wanted his wife Norma Shearer to play the role of Flaemmchen. However, she received a lot of fan mail in which fans discouraged her to take the role, after which she refused the part.

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