GRAND HOTEL

My New Year's Commitment to see all the Oscar-winning best pictures by year's end continues. This one is from 1932.

"Grand Hotel, always the same. People come, people go, and nothing ever happens." ...or so it would seem.

This is a big and extravagant look at the lives of several people from different backgrounds over the course of two days. The movie tells several different stories using the hotel as a device to intertwine those stories. Much of the camera work is classic old-style Hollywood with extremely tight close-ups that are still reminiscent of the silent films from a few years prior.

Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, and Greta ("I want to be alone") Garbo give performances that live up to the hotel's name... Grand!! They are but three of many big-name stars of the era who appear. A tad hokey at times, Grand Hotel is fast-paced and a wonderful example of storytelling from a bygone era.