From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grand Hotel
Original movie poster
Directed by	Edmund Goulding
Produced by	Paul Bern Irving Thalberg
Written by	Vicki Baum (play Menschen im Hotel) William A. Drake Béla Balázs (uncredited)
Starring	Greta Garbo John Barrymore Joan Crawford Wallace Beery Lionel Barrymore Lewis Stone Jean Hersholt
Music by	William Axt Charles Maxwell
Cinematography	William H. Daniels
Editing by	Blanche Sewell
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	April 12, 1932
Running time	112 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Grand Hotel is a 1932 MGM Pre-Code Art Deco film that won the Best Picture Oscar.

The plot device of the film - bringing together several unrelated characters into one setting - was popular and effective enough that it was re-used in other films and became known as "the Grand Hotel" formula.^{[citation needed]} The "all-star" scenario was perhaps most successfully replicated the following year in MGM's own Dinner at Eight.

The film opens and closes with Lewis Stone's totally unaware statement : "Grand Hotel. People come and go. Nothing ever happens". The comment turns out to be ironic during the few days in which the plot unfolds, because everything seems to be happening at the hotel, from romance to robbery to an accidental death.

The film came from the original Austrian play by Vicki Baum as adapted by William A. Drake and Béla Balázs. It was produced by Irving Thalberg and Paul Bern at MGM (both uncredited on the film), and directed by Edmund Goulding. The top star, Greta Garbo melodramatically delivered her famous line "I want to be alone," in this film. The cast included a series of top names: Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt.

It is the only film to have won the Best Picture Award without winning any others and without being nominated in any other categories. The award was presented to Irving Thalberg, with no mention of Paul Bern. In addition, Garbo's line "I want to be alone" was #30 in the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes.

The film was remade in 1945 as Week-End at the Waldorf starring Ginger Rogers.

• Greta Garbo - Grusinskaya
• John Barrymore - Baron Felix von Geigern
• Joan Crawford - Flaemmchen
• Wallace Beery - Preysing
• Lionel Barrymore - Otto Kringelein
• Lewis Stone - Dr. Otternschlag
• Jean Hersholt - Senf
• Robert McWade - Meierheim
• Purnell Pratt - Zinnowitz
• Ferdinand Gottschalk - Pimenov
• Rafaela Ottiano - Suzette
• Morgan Wallace - Chauffeur
• Tully Marshall - Gerstenkorn
• Frank Conroy - Rohna
• Murray Kinnell - Schweimann

Academy Awards (1932)

• Best Picture

This 1930s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.