Stage To Screen: Grand Hotel

“Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.”

So intones the lonely and forgotten Doctor Otternschalg as he watches guests and former guests mill around in the lobby of Berlin’s Grand Hotel. For him, a former First World War military doctor and burn victim, nothing ever does happen. No one writes to him. No one leaves him any messages. He is forever in a holding pattern, helplessly watching dramas play out in front of him that he has no part in, unless someone needs a doctor.

Not everyone has the same perspective as the good Doctor, however. Sweeping into the hotel is Gruskinskaya, a fading ballerina who is depressed and feeling her age. She doesn’t want to perform and she doesn’t care about the bad press. She just wants to be left alone. Her staff provides a haven for her, to the point that they don’t tell her the truth about those she meets.

One of those is the Baron Felix von Geigern, a nobleman who strides around looking like a million francs even though he’s broke and desperate for money. How the hotel hasn’t kicked him out for failing to pay his bill is a mystery, but the Baron keeps hanging around with his beloved daschund in tow and scoping out possible people to steal from.

Speaking of stealing, also staying at the hotel is General Director Preysing, who is there to discuss a merger with fellow businessment. One of his former employees, the terminally ill Otto Kringelein, has cashed out his life savings and is all set to enjoy his last days in style. He has a few things to say to Preysing, who isn’t exactly pure as the driven snow, but in the meantime, he’s drinking in every new experience. As he says, “Life is wonderful, but it’s very dangerous. If you have the courage to live it, it’s marvelous.”

Getting back to Preysing, though, one person who can attest to his unscrupulous nature is Flaemmchen, a young stenographer who shows up to work for Preysing, and it’s putting it mildly that Preysing isn’t only interested in her skills at dictation and typing. While she’s busy typing up a letter he’s checking out her legs.

All of these characters will intertwine more than they know and not all of them will make it out alive or with their dignity intact. No matter what, though, business at the hotel goes on and on, with the Doctor always around to make the pronouncement: “Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.”

The story originally started out as a novel by Vicki Baum, who was born in Vienna in 1888. From the beginning she showed an aptitude for writing, but since her dad wasn’t keen on the idea of Baum becoming a writer (he considered reading for pleasure “a secret vice”), Baum studied music and was on her way to becoming a professional harpist. She married to journalist Max Prels in 1906.

Music didn’t last, and neither did Baum’s first marriage. Baum dropped out of both, married conductor Richard Lert in 1916, had two boys, took up boxing because she was that multi-talented, and went back to writing. Grand Hotel, which was both based on a true story and a short stint she did as a chamber maid, was her breakthrough novel, and Baum soon turned it into a play that was originally produced in Berlin by Max Reinhardt, and then which ran on Broadway from November 13, 1930, until December 5, 1931.

Baum’s trademark seemed to be ensemble stories, but her real strength was in portraying strong women who had to make their way in the world for whatever reason, some of them even having children out of wedlock.

Hollywood came calling, of course, and after MGM bought the film rights to Grand Hotel, the Lerts moved out to Los Angeles, where Richard entered the music business, eventually becoming the conductor of the Pasadena City Orchestra and a music instructor at the University of Southern California. Vicki kept up her writing, working in Hollywood as a screenwriter.

The timing was rather fortuitous, as the political situation in Germany was heating up. Baum was not only persona non grata because she was Jewish, but from 1935 on her books were banned and burned in Germany because the Nazis hated her strong career woman characters.

Hollywood was a different story, of course, and when it came to Grand Hotel, MGM pulled out all the stops. The film is a feast for the eye, with black and white costumes by Adrian emphasizing the black and white of the film and the lobby’s circular design seeming to be a nod to the story’s circular nature of people coming and going in an endless cycle.

MGM crammed in as many stars as they could, but the trickiest ones to manage were Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo. To prevent conflict, the studio made sure the two women never had to share a scene, although this resulted in Garbo’s character mostly being alone except for her trysts with John Barrymore’s Baron. And yes, this movie is where Garbo’s most repeated and most misunderstood line first popped up, only “I want to be alone,” referred to being left alone, not solitude.

Grand Hotel opened with a gala of stars signing their names in a registry and looking forward to a wonderful time. They weren’t disappointed, either, as the movie was a huge success, bringing in $146.9M in today’s money and ranking number two for the year. It’s also the only Best Picture winner to not be nominated in any other category.

Over the years Grand Hotel has been remade multiple times, not the least of which are 1945’s Weekend At the Waldorf and a Broadway musical, Grand Hotel, which opened on November 16th, 1989 and ran until April 25, 1992. However, it’s pretty hard to top the original, which still enthralls audiences over ninety years after its release.

October’s Substack recap is coming out tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…

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Grand Hotel is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon. Vicki Baum’s original novel is also available.

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