Weekend im Waldorf

Grand Hotel is considered a classic, and is still well-known today. Week-End At The Waldorf, the remake, is more or less forgotten. It's a bit of a relic of its time. It seems to have been intended as a light, entertaining crowd-pleaser (with heavier moments), and, overall, it delivers on that score.

The two leading couples are played by Ginger Rogers and Walter Pigeon, and Lana Turner and Van Johnson. This being wartime (WWII) in Manhattan, Pidgeon plays a war correspondent and Johnson plays a soldier with a troubling wound - a piece of shrapnel near his heart. Rogers is a movie star and Lana, if memory serves, is a hotel stenographer. I'm not sure why, but neither of the couples has perfect chemistry. Maybe that's why the stars were never paired again. But they play out their parts with all the professionalism you're used to from them, and they're attractive people.

There are some spectacular black-and-white shots of 1945 New York City, and Robert Benchley is around to narrate. There's a big supporting cast, including many well-known faces.

If you're looking to see some glamorous stars in a glamorous setting, with the music of Xavier Cugat (whose orchestra was in residence at the hotel at the time), you should enjoy it.

Pleasant reworking of Grand Hotel changes most of what made that film a classic but is entertaining enough on its own. For starters, the tone to this one is far different than Grand Hotel. This is a lighter film with more focus on romance and humor. The setting is changed as well as it is updated to WW2 America. The war figures heavily into several of the story lines. As with Grand Hotel, this is about various characters staying at a plush hotel and how their stories intertwine. The hotel here is the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Most of the plots have been altered from the original but certain characteristics remain. Ginger Rogers plays a weary actress who falls for equally weary war correspondent Walter Pidgeon, believing him to be a jewel thief. Lana Turner is a stenographer who ponders boss Edward Arnold's "indecent proposal" while falling for bomber pilot Van Johnson. Other actors include Robert Benchley, George Zucco, Keenan Wynn, Samuel S. Hinds, and Leon Ames. Xavier Cugat plays himself and provides a little music. It's all watchable enough and even enjoyable, especially if you aren't nagged by comparisons to Grand Hotel. The cast is nice (except for an overacting Rosemary DeCamp) and the MGM production is classy as you might expect. It won't change your life but I highly doubt you'll regret watching it.

This movie was a very entertaining film. I would love to have it on DVD and incidentally, why isn't it on DVD? The romantic situation between Walter Pigeon and Ginger Rogers is enough to make you want to own it. Also, the film has several small stories that give it an extra appeal. An added tidbit is Robert Benchley's dog having puppies while he nervously reacts to the event as would an expectant father. Van Johnson is superb as a Army pilot whose fate is in the balance because of some previous injury. The film industry of today should recognize Van Johnson's contributions to films in the 1940's and 1950's. The character actors are as ever perfect in their roles.

MGM updated its "Grand Hotel" storyline, gave the four principal roles to Walter Pigeon, Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner and Van Johnson, set them in some plush hotel surroundings amid a not too involving weekend situation and just let things coast along merrily. When the story sags a little, they even bring in Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra for a Starlight Roof floor show. None of it seems real, not for a moment, but it's all as light as the frosting on a cake and no one expects you to shed any tears as they did with the original story.

The ladies have the camera in love with them most of the time. Rogers and Turner are both seen at their photogenic best and give assured performances in roles that require a modicum of thespian talent.

Rogers gives the more effortless portrayal, clearly having a good time when she finds herself in a situation not far removed from those she shared with Fred Astaire in many an RKO romantic comedy. Turner is there for eye candy and little else. Van Johnson is enthusiastically boyish as the Army man concerned about his health and Walter Pigeon is as debonair as always as a pipe smoking war correspondent who has marriage on his mind with Rogers as his prospective bride.

It's all photographed in dreamy MGM style, everything smoothly crisp with the story shifting back and forth between a couple of minor sub-plots involving Edward Arnold, Phyllis Thaxter and Keenan Wynn.

Ginger Rogers has never looked more glamorous as the worldly movie star who is not quite sure whether she yearns to be alone and Walter Pigeon is excellent as the man who eventually wins her heart.

Pleasant fluff, but easily forgotten. A nice cast does what it can with stock characters and that's about it.

A warning: The ending is unbelievably theatrical and corny.

In many ways Weekend At The Waldorf as a remake for Grand Hotel simply doesn't work. It certainly couldn't have worked at all as a melodrama the way the original was. Remember Grand Hotel was set in Weimar Republic Germany, a time that was most negative, the film came out just before Hitler took power in Germany. Many of the elements of Nazism are to be found in the original, a very pessimistic work.

1945 however was one of the most optimistic times that America ever saw. When the film was released World War II was won in both theaters, the troops were coming home, the Cold War hadn't yet started. You couldn't make a film like Grand Hotel remade to that time in America without changing the plot to have the audience accept it.

So a more optimistic Grand Hotel was done with Weekend At The Waldorf and the parts played by John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Wallace Beery, and Joan Crawford were done in this version by Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Ginger Rogers, Edward Arnold, and Lana Turner. Some of those cast names should tell you right away this will be a much lighter film.

The bittersweet interlude between John Barrymore and Greta Garbo becomes a romantic comedy between war correspondent Walter Pidgeon and movie star Ginger Rogers. She's stopping at the Waldorf on a tour and ready to start a new film, Pidgeon just back from covering the war is looking for some peace and quiet. But his reporter's instincts are aroused with the presence of crooked industrialist Edward Arnold at the hotel and trying to sneak into Arnold's room, he mistakenly is smuggled into Rogers's room in a serving cart.

Arnold is up to no good, he's about to put over a sweet deal with visiting oil sheik George Zucco. He needs a stenographer so the hotel sends up Lana Turner, but she impresses Arnold with more than her ability with shorthand.

Turner's a girl whose been done wrong in her life and she's determined to get ahead, no matter what. Even the presence of flier Van Johnson in the hotel who's about to have a delicate operation to remove some shrapnel near his heart, an operation which could kill him and whom she falls for doesn't deter her from making the play for Arnold.

That's not as gimmicky as it sounds. President Andrew Jackson carried around a bullet in his cheat because doctors would not risk an operation at first. He did it for about 20 years. So the writers were on solid ground with Johnson's plight. Zucco's casting as an oil rich Arab sheik, borrowed quite liberally from King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabis whom FDR visited on the way back from Yalta was also certainly a harbinger of things to come.

Things turn out a whole lot better for the cast members here than in Grand Hotel for the most part. Some other roles of interest are Robert Benchley as gossip columnist and Keenan Wynn as a cub reporter who is from the Lois Lane snoop and scoop journalism school. So is Pidgeon who tells Wynn to get creative in his search for a story. His methods though, not his writing.

Weekend At The Waldorf is done with typical MGM gloss and made Louis B. Mayer quite a bundle. It's not a classic like the film it was based on, but it's still a good piece of entertainment. And of course it's quite the commercial for the Waldorf Astoria hotel. It's still there in New York, not having been taken over by any of the hotel chains. At one time, Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, and Cole Porter maintained permanent residences on its premises. Two out of those three were there when the film was made.

They probably would recognize the place now. It's still an elegant place, but old fashioned, reflective of their era. But for us we have Weekend At The Waldorf to remind us.