Pre-Code vs. Post-Code: "Grand Hotel" and "Week-End at the Waldorf"

Vicki Baum's 1929 novel (and play) "Grand Hotel" was purchased by MGM, and in 1932 the studio released a film version featuring all the big shots on the lot -- Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery, with Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt thrown in for good measure.

Then in 1945 came "Week-End at the Waldorf," also from MGM, also based on Baum's work, featuring all the big shots on the lot -- Walter Pidgeon, Lana Turner, Van Johnson, Edward Arnold and Keenan Wynn, with Ginger Rogers (in her first film for MGM), Robert Benchley and Xavier Cugat and his orchestra thrown in for good measure.

"Grand Hotel" takes place in Berlin just before the Nazis come to power, and that setting -- along with the fact that the world seems to be closing in on several of the characters -- gives the film an air of melancholy. In typical pre-code fashion, there are several adult relationships and a cynicism that, by contrast, is almost totally missing from "Week-End at the Waldorf." World War II informs the latter film, which is understandable because it was happening at the time, but everything is covered with that slick, impenetrable MGM sheen. While "Grand Hotel" ends with a sense of disquiet, there's never really any doubt that everyone and everything in "Week-End" exists solely to steer the film toward a multitude of happy endings.

To see how vivid the contrast can be, consider the character who acts as a kind of philosophical narrator in each film -- in "Grand Hotel" it is the doctor (Stone, seen at left), whose face was horribly disfigured by a grenade during World War I. The good doctor is morose, to say the least. He haunts the lobby and is given one of the film's most famous lines: "Grand Hotel. People coming, people going. Nothing ever happens." But he's also given lines that hint at his loneliness and emotional desolation, like "A man who is not with a woman -- is a dead man."

In "Week-End at the Waldorf," on the other hand, our narrator is Randy Morton, played by Benchley. He's a superficial, silly-ass Broadway columnist who spends the whole movie worrying when his precious pooch is going to pop out pups.

Most of the characters of "Grand Hotel" are as alienated as the doctor -- Garbo plays prima ballerina Grusinskaya, whose physical and emotional exhaustion is affecting her work and draining her of life. The Baron (John Barrymore) is all hat and no cattle -- a gentleman with an empty title who resorts to petty theft to keep up appearances. The unfortunately-named Flem (Crawford) is a plucky stenographer who isn't above selling herself to get ahead. Preysing (Beery) is a bullying, hypocritical industrialist trying to set up a shady merger to save his Teutonic tush. Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) is a lowly clerk in one of Preysing's factories, visiting the hotel for a last fling before being felled by a terminal illness. And Senf the head porter (Hersholt) is anxious because his wife is having a difficult labor offscreen.

But the real tragedy at the heart of "Grand Hotel" lies in the doomed romance between the Baron and the ballerina. They've seen each other around the hotel -- everyone has seen the Baron -- but they've never spoken.

One night, while she is performing, he slips into her vacant room to lift a string of pearls. She enters unexpectedly and he starts a slick line of patter that soon turns sincere. They Hit It Off.

In "Week-End at the Waldorf," the ballerina has been turned into unhappy actress Irene Malvern (Rogers) and the Baron has become war correspondent Chip Collyer (Pidgeon). In one of the best touches in Bella and Sam Spewack's script, their romance parallels that of Garbo and Barrymore, but with a much lighter tone -- and with lines of dialogue that even reference "Grand Hotel," not to mention a couple other MGM movies.

Chip to Irene: "I'm the Baron, you're the ballerina and we're off to see the wizard!"

Irene to Chip: "Goodbye, Mr. Chip -- Collyer."

Ginger Rogers is starting to do that raised eyebrow thing that
would become much more common in her later movies.

Irene isn't nearly as depressed as the ballerina, and Chip is no thief, although he's mistaken for one at first. The give-and-take between the two characters is geared more to romantic comedy than high drama, but so what? Rogers is great at romantic comedy and Pidgeon more than meets her halfway. When they end up having to pretend to be married, we just go along for the ride.

In "Grand Hotel," the ballerina and the Baron spend the night together, and he tells her his simple and cynical story.

Baron: "When I was a little boy I was taught to ride and be a gentleman. Then at school, to pray and lie. And then in the war, to kill and hide. That's all."

That is not a speech you would hear in a movie released in 1945.

The Baron and ballerina share a room -- hell, they share a bed. Hell, they may even have shared more than that!

In "Week-End at the Waldorf," Chip spends the night in Irene's suite because the house dicks think he's a thief and he has to hide out. But you can bet your bottom dollar that they stay in separate rooms, mister! They even make a big deal out of piling furniture against both sides of the door. We get it, 1940s people!  

In other remake news, Lana Turner takes Crawford's role as the stenographer and Lionel Barrymore's character is played by -- Van Johnson? Yep. Turner is Bunny -- that's her name -- and Johnson is Hollis, an Air Force Captain who will soon undergo a dicey operation to remove a piece of shrapnel that's dangerously near his heart (!). Bunny dreams of a nice place on Park Avenue, while Hollis just wants to get well and go home to small-town California. Oh -- and he also is carrying a song, written by a dead war buddy, that he wants Xavier Cugat's orchestra to play. You can pretty much guess what happens there.

Bunny, meanwhile, is torn between Hollis and the shiny things dangled in front of her by Edley (Arnold), an unscrupulous entrepreneur. And Wynn is a cub reporter snooping on Edley's shady doings.

Nice interacting there. Baron.

In the 1932 film, the plot threads are much more intermingled than in the 1945 film. The Baron, in fact, pretty much interacts with every character in the movie, and he is the real heart of "Grand Hotel." His death at the end of the film is genuinely affecting, devastating the ballerina, who loved him, and Kringelein, the odd duck whom the Baron befriended while everyone else dismissed him. The last indication of the Baron is his beloved dachshund, left behind to be cared for by the staff.

There's also a dog in "Week-End at the Waldorf," as we mentioned, but it's just a symbol of silly rich people. That's just one of the many reasons why "Grand Hotel" seems to have more of a heart -- even if it's a sad heart -- than its remake, which is entertaining enough, even if it has a whole lot less on its mind.

"Min and Bill," or Punch Drunk Love

By the time she appeared in the 1930 film "Min and Bill," Marie Dressler was in her early 60s and had been performing for 38 years. Along the way she had befriended a powerful ally in screenwriter Frances Marion, who had adapted "Min and Bill" from a book written by her friend, Lorna Moon. The final screenplay bore little resemblance to Moon's work; Marion told MGM to buy the book rights mainly to help Moon financially. And she created the role of Min specifically for Dressler, to give her a starring role and more bargaining power with the studio. It worked -- "Min and Bill" was a huge hit, and Dressler won a Best Actress Oscar. (Marion would also be a kind of good-luck charm for Dressler's co-star, Wallace Beery. She would be the guiding force behind three of his best-known films -- this one, "The Big House" and "The Champ," which would result in Beery winning a Best Actor Oscar the year after Dressler's win.)

When she played roles in lesser pictures -- see "The Girl Said No" and "Chasing Rainbows" for just two examples -- Dressler would mug her way through scenes like a bulldozer tearing through topsoil. "Min and Bill" gives her a little more to chew on -- the film is an expert mix of comedy, drama and sentiment, compact and well paced.

Min is a crusty-but-lovable battle axe who runs a waterfront hotel-saloon. Her star boarder is Bill (Beery), a fisherman who's also her drinking buddy and confidant. The two of them bicker with an easy rapport, as illustrated here as Min gives Bill a shave:



The working girl Min is barking at in that scene is Nancy (Dorothy Jordan), who has been raised by Min after she was abandoned by her hard-drinking mother Bella (Marjorie Rambeau). Min loves her, but you'd never know it from the way she barks at her. Funny thing is, Nancy does know it and works willingly in the hotel.

Then two things happen -- one is that one of the other fishermen (Russell Hopton) is making advances to Nancy.  The other is that, after more than a decade, Nancy's mother is back on the scene. Min tells her that Nancy is dead, and then sends Nancy off to live with the local schoolmaster without any explanation. Then Min takes even more extreme steps to protect Nancy from her mooching mother:



Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Bill and Bella are making time with each other.

Bella (to Bill): You ain't so bad -- I've seen worse.

Bill: I've been told that before.

This provokes Min's wrath. She throws Bella out and then deals with Bill:



Nancy goes to boarding school for two years, and returns for a reunion with Min. She has news -- she's engaged to the son of a wealthy cannery owner. But as bad luck would have it, Bella also reappears, and she has discovered that Nancy is her daughter. But before she can ruin Nancy's life, Min stops her -- with a bullet, but not before Bella burns Min with a curling iron.

It's Nancy's wedding day, and Min is determined to protect her to the end. Bill wants Min to escape with him to Mexico, but Min can't resist taking one last look at Nancy:




"Min and Bill" shows the softer side of Dressler -- and as a result, she won an Oscar and became, you should excuse the expression, the biggest actress on the MGM lot in the early 1930s. 

Here are the complete credits for "Min and Bill." 

"The Big House," or Slammer Time

In the 1930 film "The Big House" people are constantly dwarfed by their surroundings. The prison where most of the story takes place is full of high walls and towers but it's also claustrophobic, crammed with sweaty prisoners sleeping three to a cell and filling the courtyard like a swarm of ants.


We first see the prison from the viewpoint of a new prisoner, Kent (Robert Montgomery). The paddy wagon that transports him to the gates is overwhelmed by the structure itself in a striking opening shot:



Once he enters, Kent is systematically reduced from a normal guy to just another convict -- they're givin' him a number and takin' way his name.

Kent is there because he's been found guilty of being a standoffish prig -- oh, and also of killing some guy in a drunken car accident. His cellmates are Butch (Wallace Beery at his Wallace Beery-ist, full of childlike bluster and yet handy with a machine gun) and Morgan (Chester Morris). They urge Kent not to hang out with the prison stool pigeon -- he's the only convict who's wearing a necktie -- but Kent hopes that he can trade inside information for a reduced sentence.

"The Big House" is full of scenes that have become prison movie cliches, showing up in films from "White Heat" to "Birdman of Alcatraz" to "The Shawshank Redemption." One of the best is the mess hall riot, not just because of Beery's violent protest of the dehumanizing effects of prison, but because of the silence -- and the hopeless panorama of convict faces -- leading up to it:



Beery's character is punished for the riot by being sent to "the dungeon," but before he goes he passes his knife to Kent. Then, during a surprise search, Kent slips the knife into Morgan's jacket. As a result, Morgan, a day away from parole, also gets sent to the dungeon. After his 30-day stretch of living in darkness, Morgan fakes illness and escapes through the infirmary. While on the outside, he seeks out and falls in love with Kent's sister (Leila Hyams), and she with him. But it isn't long before Morgan is nabbed and sent back to stir.

While Morgan's been out, Butch has been planning a massive escape to take place on Thanksgiving Day, while the place is low on guards. In a witty scene taking place that morning, all the convicts end up at a church service, singing "Open the Gates (of the Temple)." Then as they all kneel in prayer, Berry starts passing guns and bullets down the row to his fellow escapees.

Morgan refuses to be involved in the break, but he won't rat on Butch, either. That task falls to Kent. When the escape turns into a standoff between the convicts and the guards, Butch blames Morgan. But he finally figures out the truth. Meanwhile, Kent seems to be melting into a puddle of sweat:



Kent is killed in the riot, and Morgan is forced to shoot Butch. But Butch forgives him just before he dies. "The Big House" ends with a focus on Morgan, who's given an early release for his role in stopping the escape and saving a guard's life. The "decent" prisoner, Kent, is revealed as a coward and a stool pigeon, and Morgan effectively takes the place of Kent within the family.

"The Big House" won an Oscar for screenwriter Frances Marion, who adapted the script from Lennox Robinson's play. It was smoothly directed by George Hill, Marion's husband at the time. It represented a career-saving role for Beery, who got the role as a result of the death of Lon Chaney, Sr., who passed away after making only one talkie, "The Unholy Three."  

Here are the complete credits.