Hotel Berlin

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.

Unusual World War II-era drama set in a Berlin hotel during the closing moments of the war. Unusual because this film presents some Germans as good and tries to separate the Nazi regime from the ordinary population who just tried to survive the madness. Very reminiscent of "Grand Hotel" -- not surprising since the author of the novel upon which the screenplay is based is the same Vicki Baum who wrote "Grand Hotel" and "Weekend at the Waldorf." Characters and sub-plots come and go with a central theme of the search for an escaping prisoner and the moral and physical decay of the Nazi regime. Raymond Massey is quite good as General Arnim von Dahnwitz, an old-school officer who participated in the plot against the Corporal and is offered the honorable way out. Peter Lorre has a brief role but why he was released from prison and other transformations must have been left on the cutting room floor. Made during the war and released after its conclusion, this is an excellent example of propaganda. Viewers are conditioned to the punishment (not justice) of the enemy, fifth columns that would have left the dying Germany to carry on the war from within North America, and the need to build a new Germany when all of the chaos ends. Not a light movie, but one that would serve well in a Film and Political Science course. Recommended.

Most of the wartime pictures made in the US portray the Nazis as complete sadists...almost demonic. While there are bits of that in this film, the way they portray the Nazis in the final weeks of the war is a bit more multidimensional.

In some ways, the film plays like a Nazified version of Grand Hotel- -with this Berlin hotel being a way to tie together the various stories in the picture. There are evil Nazis, not quite so evil Nazis, Germans not in the military that hate the Nazis and Germans who are just hoping to survive. As for the really terrible Nazis, some of the better actors who specialize in portraying evil characters are here...such as George Coulouris, Henry Danielle and Raymond Massey. The stories are engaging and the picture manages to show a reasonably accurate picture of Germany in the final days...which is amazing since the film came out only weeks before the war ended in Europe. Well made and its only fault is that, at times, the film seems overly long and a bit of editing would have helped the tempo.

By the way, some of the anti-Nazis in the film were portrayed by folks who actually DID escape from Nazi Europe, such as Frank Reicher, Peter Lorre and Helmut Dantine.

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.

This war film offers a unique slant on the German political/social climate during early 1945. Because it was conceived without the benefit of hindsight it's that much more interesting to view 60 years later. While the story is necessarily compacted to allow for the drama of various characters to be inserted, there is a solid story at the core. Good performances...Raymond Massey was particularly fine in a relatively low key role while Peter Lorre plays a repentant Nazi with equal effectiveness. The female leads here are also great, especially Faye Emerson as the hotel "hostess." There are some dated elements of propaganda (a painting of Hitler hanging in hotel lobby prompts one guest to comment "I'd like to see him hanging another way") All the same this film offers thoughtful character studies of human beings at their best and worst while under duress. Some plot loopholes exist but they do not greatly detract from story; the brisk pace holds viewer attention from beginning to end. A worthwhile way to spend an hour and a bit.