Hotel Berlin

Warner Brothers used none of their box office stars in making Hotel Berlin. What they did do is use a whole lot of second line character players who had been playing Nazis throughout the World War II years. The only two who didn't get into this film were Bobby Watson who played Hitler several times and Martin Kosleck who essayed Goebbels perfectly.

If this film has a familiar look to it the author of the novel on which this is based is Vicki Baum who wrote MGM's Oscar winning Grand Hotel which covered Germany in the days before the Third Reich. In Grand Hotel the Weimar Republic was crumbling and now in 1943 the Third Reich was crumbling. The book was written in 1943 and Warner Brothers barely got the film out as events were overtaking the story.

Some of the most sinister of character players like George Coulouris, Kurt Kreuger, Alan Hale, Raymond Massey, Henry Daniell play various Nazi types. Peter Lorre is a Nobel Prize winning scientist whom the Nazis have broken. Helmut Dantine who played some really nasty Nazis in Mrs. Miniver and Edge Of Darkness is our protagonist/hero in the main plot. He's escaped from a concentration camp, but he's wise to the fact that the SS let him escape so that Dantine could lead them to other underground leaders. Still he has to shake their efforts to keep on his tail. He does do so in the Hotel Berlin where all these folks are staying, but has to get out undetected.

Raymond Massey has an interesting role as a Nazi general who got caught up in a plot against Hitler. When Vicki Baum wrote the book the assassination attempt against Hitler by Von Stauffenberg hadn't occurred. But by this time it had. Massey is portrayed as a brutal Prussian type who is no hero, but was looking to save his own skin post war. Now he's playing for time.

For all the men in the story, the two main women's roles really dominate Hotel Berlin. Hotel hostess Faye Emerson works as an informer for her survival. She turns out to have a bit more character than supposed in the end.

Best in the film though is Andrea King in what might have been her career role as Fraulein Lisa Dorn, celebrated German actress who hobnobs with the high and low of the Third Reich. She's a Nazi through and through, but a realist who just wants out of Germany and will use anyone to achieve her ends be it Massey, Dantine, Major Kurt Kreuger, or any whom she tries to charm.

A bit over the top in wartime propaganda, Hotel Berlin holds up very well for today's audience.

I just saw this for the first time on TCM and found it fascinating. It's one of the few movies made during WWII that distinguishes between ordinary German citizens and Nazis. There's very little overt wartime propaganda, until the end (which has a small surprise twist). Although made with a so-called "B" cast, it's every bit as engaging as Grand Hotel. A shame it's not on VHS or DVD, but surely TCM will be showing it again.

Entertaining war drama with a darker tenor than most studio films at the time. The cast performs well but with the source material being from the author of Grand Hotel and a decent script it's a surprise that the players are more or less B level performers.

That's not a swipe at any of them since they all play their parts well, although a more charismatic actor than Helmut Dantine, someone like James Mason, would have given better focus to the lead character's plight. Andrea King, a good actress with an unusual quality but often stuck in nothing parts, has one of her best roles that she perhaps received because of the character's murky ethics. The audience is never fully sure what side her duplicitous Lisa Dorn is playing for which might have caused bigger stars such as Joan Crawford, Ann Sheridan and Alexis Smith to decline the role.

The supporting cast is stocked with great character actors all getting the most out of their parts. Faye Emerson's role of Tillie, an opportunistic hotel employee, somewhat shadows Joan Crawford's Flaemmchen in Grand Hotel though she's not as sympathetic. She offers a fine interpretation of the role making her moral quandary relatable and touching. Likewise Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre also stand out fleshing out their roles surely more than what was on the page.

Not readily available but well worth seeking out.

Entertaining melodrama that revolves around an upscale hotel as the Nazi regime is tumbling down and the rats are deserting the sinking ship. What makes this film so much above the other anti Nazi propaganda films of it's time is that the whole Jewish prejudice issue is actually dealt with, (can only think of one other film in the WW2 era that even mentions it---The Mortal Storm (1940) another 4 star movie). Even has one character having to wear the yellow star on her chest. Another exploding in a bomb shelter at the Nazi who tormented her Jewish lover to death because she was a gentile in love with a Jew. I was never bored in this movie as plots and subplots are unravelled. Warners B roster of character actors including Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Andrea King, Alan Hale, Philip Dorn, Faye Emerson (who steals the movie as the hotel prostitute)and all the rest are very good. Never released on VHS or DVD. Wish it was. Forgotten film but was brought up in McCarthy Witch Hunt trials of 1950's getting the writer into trouble and some jail time. Recommend this film highly.

Like "Grand Hotel," "Hotel Berlin" shows the lives of various guests and workers at a hotel at a specific point in time. This point in time is toward the end of the war, when Germany was obviously losing.

Raymond Massey plays General Arnim von Dahnwitz, who is given the chance to commit suicide after an attempt on Hitler's life fails. He's in love with an actress, Lisa Dorn (Andrea King), who is a collaborator but, not sure where she's going to end up when the war ends, play both sides. In fact, an escaped prisoner (Helmut Dantine) hides in her room. He realizes he's been allowed to escape to lead the Germans to the underground.

Tillie (Faye Emerson), the "hotel hostess" is an informant but plays as many sides as she can to get a new pair of shoes. She was in love with a Jewish man, Max, presumed dead, and his mother comes to her for help getting some pain medicine for her failing husband. It's then that she learns that Max is alive, and her attitude undergoes a change.

Peter Lorre has a small role, that of a scientist who was imprisoned and then released (with no explanation for the audience) and has become an alcoholic.

This film was released after the war, and it's a little more interesting than many propaganda films in that it shows the state of the German people, and separation from the beliefs of Hitler, even among officers. It's a time of confusion for a falling Germany.

The acting is good, particularly from Faye Emerson as Tillie and Raymond Massey as the doomed General.

Worth seeing, not your typical propaganda film.