Grand Hotel
Short description
Grand Hotel is a 1932 American drama set in a luxurious Berlin hotel during the late 1920s. Over the course of a single day, the lives of several guests intersect: a Russian ballerina past the height of her fame, a bankrupt baron who turns to theft, a dying man spending his remaining savings, a stenographer, and an industrialist desperate to save his business. Their encounters bring together romance, crime and desperation within the closed world of the hotel, watched over by a doctor who has lived there since the war.
The film was directed by Edmund Goulding, the first of seven features he made between 1932 and 1956, following Riptide, A Night at the Opera, Dark Victory, The Razor's Edge, Nightmare Alley and Teenage Rebel. Irving Thalberg produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a screenplay by Vicki Baum, Béla Balázs and Edgar Allan Woolf. Greta Garbo leads a large credited cast of 48 as Grusinskaya, alongside John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore and Lewis Stone.
On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.3 from around 22,000 votes, and on TMDB it stands at 7 out of 10 from 364 votes. A critics' rating of 7.4 from 55 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores on both platforms, indicating generally favourable professional assessment alongside solid viewer approval.
What's left behind the scenes
- John Barrymore agreed to a fee lower than usual, just to appear in a film with Garbo.
- The role of Suzette was specifically written for Pauline Frederick. The actress was unable to play it due to illness, and the role went to Rafaela Ottiano.
- The role of Lionel Barrymore could have been played by Buster Keaton.
- Garbo wanted to cast John Gilbert as her lover. The actor was not invited to the film because his recent work had performed rather poorly at the box office.
- The film contains no scenes where Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford appear in the same frame. This was done deliberately to avoid a clash of the two stars in the film.
- However, conflicts on set could not be avoided. Crawford was irritated that Garbo was desperately hogging the spotlight in the film. Therefore, knowing how much Garbo hated tardiness and Marlene Dietrich, Crawford planned significant delays in filming, letting everyone know she had been spending the time with Dietrich.
- Garbo constantly demanded that the set always be lit with red light to enhance the romantic mood.
- Wallace Beery also initially refused the role of Praising. He only agreed when he was promised that Praising would be the only character speaking with a German accent.
- Greta Garbo long refused the role of the Georgian woman, as she believed that at 27 years old, she was too old to play a prima ballerina.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
