Customer Reviews

Weekend at the Waldorf [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When MGM decided to remake its own "Grand Hotel" it pulled out all the stops. Vicky Baum's story of several people crossing paths is set at the lavish Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. MGM provided a glossy sheen and top stars like Ginger Rogers, Van Johnson and Lana Turner. The result is a more accessible movie than the original Garbo and Barrymore film, and Rober Z. Leonard takes the great cast through their paces quite nicely.

Ginger Rogers is the busy but lonely movie star Irene Malvern who, through a chain of circumstances believes war correspondent Chip Collier (Walter Pigeon) is her secretary's boyfriend and has come to steal her jewels. When Collier can't convince her otherwise he plays along to have some fun, creating an amusing circumstance in which they end up pretending to be married! There is charm and a lot of fun to their play romance which slowly blossoms into a very real romance. Both Rogers and Pigeon look like they're having great fun and work well together.

The second story involves a young and lovely Lana Turner as Bunny, the hotel stenographer who wants a penthouse kind of life. By chance she takes dictation from a doctor about an operation planned after the weekend on Captain James Hollis to remove shrap metal fragments from around his heart. Van Johnson has one of his best roles as the young Hollis, who may not survive without a reason to live. When he comes to Bunny to dictate his will, it is quite moving. Having lost his only friend overseas, and with no family remaining, he decides to leave his medals to his landlady, for her kindness. Johnson nearly breaks your heart here, and Bunny's too, who suddenly begins to falter in her determination to have Park Avenue.

The third connecting story involves a big businessman named Edly (Edward Arnold) attempting a shady oil deal with Sheiks that may not be good for the country. Colliers' bumbling protege Oliver (Keenan Wynn) seeks his help to get the story. Edly, of course, has his eye on Bunny and wants her to be his confidential secretary, which will give her the kind of life she's been after. Only now there is Captain Hollis. All these stories crisscross and at the beautiful Waldorf Astoria.

This is a very enjoyable film that will have you smiling a lot and laughing quite a bit. The rest of the time it tugs at your heart. Xavier Cugat has a nice turn as the Waldorf's bandleader and is involved in Hollis' story in a way I won't spoil for you. This is great entertainment from the glory days of MGM. This film has a luster that extends beyond what the eyes see and is a great film to add to your classic film collection.

It gets the highest review possible for being a movie that did exactly what it set out to do: Entertain me with great dialogue, mixed in with clever subplots intertwining each other.

I've never seen its original, "Grand Hotel". Since the original got a Best Picture award, you know where I'm going next.

Still, if you haven't seen Grand Hotel or Weekend at the Waldorf, I'll recommend watching this one first. This way, if Grand Hotel turns out being better, then you'll enjoy both movies.

Everybody in this movie gave great performances, and I was laughing throughout a lot of the movie.

It's definitely one of those movies that you'll wanna watch over and over.

Interesting note: If you've ever watched 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, you'll probably find it amusing that the main husband/wife characters in 30 Seconds over Tokyo are in this movie.

Anyways, go rent it, then come back here and buy it.

WEEK-END AT THE WALDORF (1945)

A very loose remake of GRAND HOTEL, schmaltzier and unabashedly romantic, more comedic, sillier, but I loved it. This is a really fun film with a great cast.

The film of course revolves around a weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria. Walter Pidgeon plays the exhausted foreign war correspondent with a case of "burn out" who just wants to sleep the entire weekend before he's sent overseas again (even going so far as hanging a "do not disturb" sign on the door in 7 different languages).

Ginger Rodgers plays the exhausted, overworked movie star at the Hotel for an old friends wedding and a big movie premiere.

Edward Arnold is the shady oil tycoon trying to close a deal that will help him corner the oil market after the war IF he can convince (or con) visiting Arab Prince George Zucco and keep former "thorn in his side" Pidgeon from gumming up the works.

Van Johnson plays a GI who must undergo a dangerous surgery that he may not survive unless, as his doctor tells him..."he can find something to live for". Enter Lana Turner. Hotel stenographer and notary public extraordinaire (and cute as a button!). Johnson goes to her to have his will notorized. Unbeknownst to Johnson, his doctor has dictated a letter to Turner who knows about his situation. Of course it's love at first sight. However...Turner has been offered a high paying job by Edward Arnold, and Lana...who's struggled to climb up the career ladder, hoping for bigger and better things, finds she must choose between love or success.

Pidgeon meanwhile, takes rather dense cub reporter Keenan Wynn under his wing to help him uncover the truth about Arnolds dirty dealings. In doing so...he accidentally runs into Ginger Rodgers, and in a funny case of mistaken identity, ends up spending the weekend on the couch in her hotel room. The two have some very funny and romantic scenes together. They have a great chemistry. They even manage to spoof a scene from Grand Hotel, when Pidgeon claims to be a Baron after her jewels. Rogders says "wait a minute...that's from Grand Hotel!" Funny stuff.

Also visiting the Waldorf for the weekend is Robert Benchley, staying at the hotel and worried sick about his Terrier who is on the verge of delivering puppies. Benchley also narrates the film and is his usually witty self. It's all great fun all the way through.

Ginger Rodgers wears some delightfully sexy gowns and manages to out "sexy" Lana Turner.

So...will the hilarious, cocky Walter Pidgeon melt the jaded Gingers Rodgers icy heart? Will Lana Turner choose the leering Edward Arnold and his lucrative job offer over her love for Van Johnson? Will Keenan Wynn uncover the truth about Arnolds schemes? Will Robert Benchleys Terrier have puppies?

All I can say is while you're waiting to find out how all these loose ends wrap up...you can listen to the wonderful music of Xavier Cugat and his delightful Waldorf-Astoria dancers!

Remember, this is a more comedic retelling of Grand Hotel. Almost a spoof actually. To get upset that this isn't as good as Grand Hotel or do some sort of scene by scene comparison to it would be simply ridiculous. They are two different movies and both are very entertaining.

The interior shots of the Hotel are great...and the film has some really crisp and beautiful cinematography. The movie clips along at a fast pace.

A really fun film. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Shoppers trying to order "Weekend at the Waldorf" can find it at the Warner Brother's store under their Archive Collection. There a newly made copy will set you back $19.95 and shipping - far less than the prices listed here used. Amazon does list some of these Warners Archive Collection films - I recently purchased one - just not all. I have no idea when the situation will be cleared up so Amazon shoppers can order any of the films from the Archives, or if Amazon is actually serious in listing these films.

The film itself is a mild remake of MGM's 1932 Oscar winning super cast production "Grand Hotel". New York City's Waldorf Astoria during 1945 stands in for the orginal setting, a luxury hotel in Berlin.(Imagine what a wild film it would have been if the film had been updated to 1945 Berlin!) Ginger Rogers as lonely actress subs for Garbo's ballerina Grusinskaya, while Walter Pidgeon plays a famous foreign correspondent as the love interest, previously handled by John Barrymore as the Baron. Joan Crawford's sensational Flaemmchen, with eyes that could look through a soul, and the most smashing legs ever seen in a thirties film, transforms in 1945 into sweater girl Lana Turner, with the impossibly promiscious name of 'Bunny'. (Really - just how dense did MGM think the audiences of the day were? Good grief - it's Lana Turner!) Lionel Barrymore's dying Kringelein, in keeping with wartime propaganda needs, reappears as a young serviceman, in this case heart throb Van Johnson, who faces a life or death operation and is spending his last week living it up. The role of the manipulative and cowardly bully General Director Preysing, so well played by Wallace Beery, is turned over to the solid Edward Arnold playing a shady war profiteer. To add a little extra - missing from the original - there is music and a new subplot involving the Waldorf Astoria's real life house band - Xavier Cugat and his orchestra.

Acting as partial narrator MGM inserted Robert Benchley, a highly popular presence in his day, but remarkably wearying now. His flippant tone - he is supposed to be a columnist - is in striking contrast with his counterpart in "Grand Hotel", a cynical and weary disfigured war veteran, Lewis Stone. (Who appeared for the seventh and last time in a Garbo feature.) One character no one forgot from the original was Adolphus, the Baron's dachshund, whose devotion and love for his owner were magically conveyed in Barrymore's unforgettable performance: If a pet has received a more devoted expression of pure love on screen, I've yet to see it. The 1945 remake combines dog and Jean Hersholt's desk clerk waiting to hear news of his pregnant wife's imminent delivery with a pregnant Scottie - shades of Fala - belonging to Benchley's character. Thankfully MGM drew the line on using Lassie.

It's pointless to compare this film with the original - the first is a stunner of a movie, and a must see. This wartime version is set on a much lower key - Garbo's intensity is far beyond the dramatic talents of Ginger, while Pidgeon's trademark low key persona, which works so well when played against the likes of Greer Garson, is a far cry from the ultra-stylish melodrama of Barrymore. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate what is here: Lana Turner and Van Johnson were as good as MGM could offer, and MGM had an extraordinary body of stars to chose from. Watching the film is not an unpleasant experience, and if the film packs little of the wallop of its far more illustrious predecesor, the story remains solid, the cast chosen from the top current stars on the MGM lot, and the production values far exceeded the norma; standards of cost-cutting wartime Hollywood.

In the end "Weekend at the Waldorf" might best be described as not so much a failure as an indication of how far MGM had fallen by 1945 from the glory heights of Irving Thalberg. The great melodrama of 1932 had been transformed and softened into a high class soap opera.

"Weekend at the Waldorf" does treat the concerns of the day - loss and fear of death, fear of commitment - any film of the era could not ignore what was everywhere in the air! (Though the Fox musicals did their best!) The stars in the film do reflect their time in many ways. The tragedy of the "Grand Hotel" has been softened - no one dies as before. Indeed, there any fews scenes more heart-breaking then the ending of "Grand Hotel": The previously suicidal Garbo's exiting the hotel in a flurry of trailing staff, she bursting out in smiles and delight, overflowing in a euphoria of joy in her new love for the Baron, kept unaware of the news of his death.

There were very few films of the time devoid of propaganda facing up to the fears. It would take another year, and a far more serious film to begin to confront the feelings and griefs that were only half spoken. The Best Years of Our Lives For almost the entire war these feelings were never given public voicing, but were expressed out of the public eye - with the great state funeral for FDR acting as one gigantic exception and a catharsis for the nation.

This film is really great and very entertaining. Many
famous film stars are in it. I'd give it more stars if I could.

Ginger Rogers has top billing, but Lana Turner steals the show in this somewhat sluggish wartime remake of "Grand Hotel." Turner plays Bunny Smith, a young stenographer at the Waldorf, whose desperate race against lifelong poverty leads her to reject love in favor of a calloused, pragmatic, taking-care-of-number-one attitude. Her romance with a wounded WWII soldier (Van Johnson) is the single most interesting aspect of this otherwise negligible film. Stiff and unwieldy, "Weekend" simply lacks the sparkle and wit of "Hotel," the sincere sophistication and freshness -- and the superior ensemble acting. Here, the pacing is slow, the direction unsure, and much of the acting is flat. Walter Pidgeon, in particular, is a snoozer as he plays opposite Rogers -- the two simply lack chemistry, and seem like they're not even in the same room for most of their scenes. It's an okay film, I suppose, but really, you're much better off with the original -- "Grand Hotel" was a real class act, while this flick was workmanlike at best. Latin dance bandleader Xavier Cugat, who I believe actually did have a long residency at the Waldorf Hotel, gets two good, long scenes -- one a comedic bit towards the start, and the other an ambitiously staged musical performance with Lina Romay and crooner Bob Graham as vocalists. For fans of Cugat or Turner, this one's worth checking out; otherwise stick with the '30s version.

The film is to dark and not easily seen but the tape runs and tracks fine

The two-dimensional uninteresting characters put me to sleep after I gave it a try. I skimmed through it, and promptly erased it - it was on Turner Classic Movies. Glad I didn't buy it. I do like movies from the 40s, otherwise.