The Oscar Project #5: Grand Hotel (1932)

by Chris Marshall:

Grand Hotel is the gold standard for Rich People Problems movies. The entire story takes place within Berlin’s fanciest hotel, and two of the main male characters are a Baron and an Industry Magnate. But at least there’s a twist: the Baron’s Rich Person Problem is that he has no money. How he affords to spend so much time in Berlin’s fanciest hotel is never directly addressed, but I suppose it’s best not to ask too many questions.

If nothing else, Grand Hotel was the first star-studded Best Picture winner, featuring five recognizable names: Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Wallace Beery, and John and Lionel Barrymore. Crawford, Beery, and Lionel Barrymore all won Oscars for lead acting in their careers (Garbo was nominated four times but never won), and they all delivered solid performances here. Beery was particularly effective at portraying the sleazy, villainous Industry Magnate, but based on everything I know about him, that hardly required acting.  

However, none of them were nominated for this film; in fact, Grand Hotel won Best Picture without being nominated for any other category, the only time in history this has happened.

And really, that seems totally fair. There’s nothing wrong with Grand Hotel, but nothing stands out, either. I give the filmmakers credit for weaving the five narratives (one for each star) together so seamlessly, but the problem is that none of them are particularly interesting. John Barrymore, as the Baron, falls in love with both Crawford, who is Beery’s stenographer, and Garbo, a Russian dancer, in the same night, which isn’t that much of a stretch, really. Meanwhile, Beery is antagonizing Lionel Barrymore, a drunk, terminally ill former employee of Beery’s, and blah blah blah, long story short, Beery bludgeons the Baron to death during a botched burglary.

Hey, at least I didn’t see that coming! Mr. Industry Magnate seemed like a jerk up to that point, but he didn’t seem to have any homicidal tendencies. Then again, Germans are well known for their aggressive personalities, so it was only a matter of time until he snapped.

Greta Garbo and John Barrymore

Have I mentioned that all of these people (except Garbo) are German? You can tell because they have silly accents. The soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front didn’t need silly accents because they had pointy helmets to remind us they were German. Like the question of how the Baron affords to stay in this hotel, the mystery of why native Germans are speaking English to one another in the middle of Berlin is still unsolved. And Garbo? A Swedish actress playing a Russian dancer who speaks English in a German hotel. She must have been so confused.

Honestly, this is the most watchable of the first five winners, but I still can’t imagine ever yearning to see it again. I don’t know how much longer I can keep using the “brand new medium” excuse to justify the Academy’s decisions. Then again, when I think about the winners from the 1980s, I realize that not much changed in the first half century of the award. Nevertheless, I’m going to suck it up, stay the course, and hope for the best. There are a few classics coming up in the next couple of decades, and that’ll make it all worth it, right?