Grand Hotel

Grand Hotel is similar to Robert Altman's Short Cuts: it is a spectacle for the sake of its cast more than a functional movie. The draw is seeing so many stars in one movie, a feature made literal by putting the five primary actors inside star shapes on the poster. These five people have five minimally functional half-stories that intersect and overlap at various points, and then crash into each other in the last fifteen minutes in a rather surprising way. In 1932, I'm sure Grand Hotel's all-star line-up was enough to carry the day, and from a historical perspective, I can appreciate that aspect. But 94 years later, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and John Barrymore assembled in one movie isn't enough to paper over the cracks for me. The five plots have precisely enough to keep them alive and no more. The movie is entirely dependent on its cast as the fuel to build any sense of momentum. By the time Grand Hotel gets to its surprising dramatic twist and draws all the strands together, it is far too late to redeem an altogether pedestrian affair. Grand Hotel isn't bad. It just isn't anything beyond its assembled parts. It's a historical curiosity, a trivia question, but it is not a must-watch. It is, in equal parts, watchable and forgettable.