Berlin’s plushest, most expensive hotel is the setting where, in the words of Dr. Otternschlag, “people come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

The doctor is usually drunk, so he misses the fact that Baron von Geigern (John Barrymore) is broke and trying to steal eccentric dancer Grusinskaya’s (Greta Garbo) pearls. He ends up stealing her heart instead.

Powerful German businessman Preysing (Wallace Beery) brow beats Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), one of his company’s lowly bookkeepers, but it is the terminally ill Kringelein who holds all the cards in the end.

Meanwhile, the Baron also steals the heart of Preysing’s mistress, Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford), but she doesn’t end up with either one of them in the end…

Grand Hotel reminds me of Gosford Park or Clue.  A bunch of random people gather at a large house or hotel, and throughout the course of the movie, we discover how their lives are connected.

Doing a little research online, I found out that Grand Hotel was originally conceived by an MGM production chief as one of the first All-Star vehicles. Conventional wisdom at the time was that you put no more than one or two of your biggest stars in a picture, so as to lower production cost and to maximize profits. Grand Hotel featured 5 of MGM’s top tiered stars and was one of the highest grossing pictures in studio history.

Of course, any time you have more than one or two stars on set, there are bound to be some problems.

There are no scenes where Garbo and Crawford are in the same frame.  This was done to eliminate the possibility that one star might upstage the other. And Crawford was irked by Garbo’s insistence on top billing and decided to take her revenge. Knowing that Garbo loathed tardiness and Marlene Dietrich in equal measures, Crawford played Dietrich records between shots and made sure to arrive late on set.

Also, I think this is the only film I’ve ever seen Greta Garbo in.  Or John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, or even Joan Crawford.  Hmm… I wonder if I’ll run into them again as I continue to make my way through the list of Best Picture winners.

Cimarron, the first Western to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (and until Dances With Wolves in 1990, the only one), is the story of Sabra Cravat (Irene Dunne) and the westward expansion of the United States at the turn of the 18th century.

When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, however, he begins to feel confined once again, and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take care of herself and soon becomes prominent in her own right.

For the first half of the film, I was easily distracted.  Distracted by the poor sound mixing, the lack of foley (meaning, no sounds of footsteps, doors slamming, etc), the literal shooting from the hip (you must have extrordinary aim, if you think about it, to be able to shoot from the hip). In fact, there were several times that I laughed outloud at the film.  It didn’t help that a nosy neighbor was played by a woman who could’ve easily been Carol Burnett’s grandmother.

But then the film got serious, emotional, and riveting – it became more than just a film about the land rush of the early 1900′s.  (Side note: as the film was made in 1931, this is probably a pretty accurate depiction – there must have been veterans of the land rush still alive, available to consult on the film and help with details.)

Cimarron is really a film about racism (against the Native Americans), the social development of the United States (“Westward, ho!”), and the personal development of Sabra Cravat.  She went from being a sheltered socialite from Kansas to being elected to Congress and campaining for the rights of Native Americans (i.e. citizenship).  Of course, this change took a lifetime for her, and she spent many years without a husband (he’d leave to go off fighting in wars or just to explore new territory).

And for a long time, I didn’t like Sabra.  But when I finally realized that the film was about her and her personal growth, I began to admire her perserverence and her bravery in admitting she was wrong.  She had initially forbidden her son to marry the girl Ruby because she was an Indian, but at the end of the film, she publicly commends her son and praises her daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

The only thing that troubles me about this film is that the film itself goes through great lengths to champion the Indians, yet the actress that played the grown-up Ruby in the film, Ms. Dolores Brown, was uncredited.  The filmmakers came so far with this film, but stopped just short.

Up next, MGM’s Grand Hotel!

The book is probably the most famous anti-war novel ever written. The story is told by a young ‘unknown soldier’ in the trenches of Flanders (which reminds me of this poem) during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Through the vividly described incidents of war, the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war – of any war – is told for a whole generation of victims.

The movie remains pretty true to the book (from what I can remember of the book), and definitely does a great job in creating images that burn into your mind.  I am sure that most of us would recognize scenes from the film without ever having seen the film itself.  And while the film was a bit tough to sit through (it feels like a silent film, but with talking), it was quite remarkable to behold.

I kept reminding myself that the American public at the time the film was released (1930) had seen little of the war in Europe.  So to see this film must have been horrifying.  There is one particular scene where a man gets blown up and we see what remains of him hanging on a fence.  Graphic, yes.  Memorable, definitely. (Also keep in mind that the MPAA film ratings didn’t come along until 1968 – prior to that, movies were governed by the Hays Code.)

But this wasn’t really a film about the theories and strategies of war – it was a film about the psychology of war.

I am enjoying watching these early films – it’s certainly gives me different views on World War I.

Next up, a Western – Cimarron!

It was a bit tedious at parts, and the acting wasn’t always great, but it was impressive to see how the sound stayed matched with the visual – even during the elaborate dance numbers.

A Broadway Melody is the story of Harriet and Queenie Mahoney, a vaudeville act, who come to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield’s shows. Eddie was in love with Harriet, but when he meets Queenie, he falls in love with her, but she is courted by Jock Warriner (yes, MGM meant for his name to sound like rival studio head Jack Warner), a member of the New Yorker high society. It takes a while for Queenie to recognize that she is nothing more than a toy for Jock, and it takes equally as long for Harriet to recognize that Eddie is in love with Queenie.

The movie ends pretty much how you would expect it to.  Eddie and Queenie marry, while Harriet pursues her dream of performing on Broadway.

My friend Marci and I were not all that capitvated by the film (it was mildly more fun once we realized we weren’t hearing things and that Jock’s name was supposed to sound like Jack Warner’s), but in light of what the film accomplished for the time period, we respect it.

Would I recommend this film?  Not really.  But it is definitely a part of film history and if you want plan on doing the same project that I’m doing, it’s worth the viewing.  Besides, it’s easy to rent from Blockbuster.com.

Tomorrow, we watch All Quiet on the Western Front.  We’ll see how that goes, as none of us read (or liked, for those who did read it) the book.

At the encouraging of Nick, Marci, Daniel and a few others at work, I have decided to jump in and tackle the list of films that have won the award for Best Motion Picture at the annual Academy Awards ceremony.

I am starting at the beginning, and I will watch every single Best Picture winner, chronologically as much as possible.

I started last night by joining the aforementioned people at Nick’s house for a screening of the film Wings.

Produced by Paramount studios and released in 1927, Wings is the story of two young men, one rich, one middle class, who are in love with the same woman, and who become fighter pilots in World War I.

Clara Bow stars as Mary, the girl-next-door who loves Jack, but as he’s too busy trying to woo Sylvia away from David, off the boys go to war and Mary gets left behind.

The story is fairly predictable.  David and Jack, enemies at first, quickly become best friends against the backdrop of training to be pilots.  The young rookies are soon shipped out to the front, where their tent mate is a young Gary Cooper.  (It’s a good thing Cooper’s character only had a few lines before crashing in a routine practice flight, or else he very well would’ve stolen the film.)

Over the next two hours, director William A. Wellman (A Star Is Born, The Public Enemy) takes us on a discovery of not just World War I, but a discovery of film.  At two hours, nineteen minutes long, Wings is definitely generous in its scenes.  A fight scene today would be a series of quick edits lasting no longer than a minute or two – the one in Wings lasts a good ten minutes.

But it was never too much for me.  I could see the joy and enthusiasm everyone put into the film.  The film industry, if you think about it, was still such a new thing when this film was released.  It’s almost like they wanted to show everyone what they’ve discovered they could do with this nifty camera thing.

And, in case I forgot to mention it earlier, Wings is a silent film.  So there’s no dialogue, only a few title cards that flash up every once in a while.  The title cards are so well-written though!  The metaphors are fitting (and patriotic), and I was impressed throughout at the title cards’ ability to concisely sum up the situation.

My recommendation?  Watch this film.  Clara Bow is just adorable as Mary, the men playing David and Jack are dashing and you really root for them, and it’s a neat way to glimpse into America’s history in World War I.  I rate this film a solid 8 out of 10.