pinckelopes-62182 Review of Grand Hotel

Grand Hotel (I) (1932)

One scene near the end is worth the whole movie.

[10/10 · 15 August 2020]

"Grand Hotel" is the kind of high-gloss, all-star movie that only MGM could make because it had under contract a constellation of high-wattage stars, all of whom seem to be on display (except Clark Gable, Marie Dressler and Jean Harlow). Even though Greta Garbo, the nominal star, may seem a bit too old and too big to be an acclaimed ballerina, no one can emote like her, even when she's simply staring at the camera. John Barrymore is her match as the jaded, doomed baron, and Wallace Beery is appropriately bombastic as the industrial magnate. But for me, the two stars of "Grand Hotel" are another Barrymore -- Lionel -- and Joan Crawford because of a scene near the end when they're mourning the baron. When Kringelein (Barrymore), flush with gambling winnings from the night before, hears Flaemmchen (Crawford) talk about her poverty, he offers to take care of her. At this point, the scene takes off. Stunned by this offer of genuine kindness, Flaemmchen tears up as she accepts; Kringelein, a nebbish who probably never has had any luck with women, seems genuinely flabbergasted that anyone so glamorous would be interested in him and be willing to care for him. It's beautifully emotional, a moment that transcends acting (not unlike Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's last big, equally emotional scene in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" 35 years later). I'll accept the criticism -- the movie contains no hint of the Depression or the impending collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism -- but "Grand Hotel" is hardly an exercise in social criticism. It's escapist fare, designed for Depression-weary audiences trying to escape the world beyond the theaters, and it delivers beautifully, especially in Crawford and Barrymore's big scene.