Week-End at the Waldorf

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 is my favorite wartime satire-comedy for three reasons. One is the towering performance by Walter Pigeon as the war correspondent Chip Collyer who falls in love with a lovely actress; the second is the setting in the world's first self-contained hotel-residence center, the twin-towered Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, known all over the world by its single initial "W"; the third is because it is a very United States' adaptation of Vicki Baum's "Grand Hotel", and as a writer, its adaptation problem has always interested me. The second film is related to the film much as "Marlowe" is related to the novel "The Little Sister". Angst, heavy drama and most of the shadows were removed; what was left was a genial, sometimes thoughtful and I assert an interesting set of four major inter-twined story-lines. They have, I suggest, a common theme, namely "one must find a reason to enjoy life, even if it takes risks, honesty and perseverance." One story line involved a war correspondent and an actress who mistakes him for the Jewel thief she has been expecting, her maid's errant boyfriend; a second focused on a soldier facing a 50-50 life-death operation and the pretty secretary he meets who is looking for a rich husband, not him; third there was the young reporter seeking an interviews with a visiting sheik who is shunted by the war correspondent into exposing a fraudulent entrepreneur; and fourth there was the shady entrepreneur trying to steal millions from the sheik, and hire the secretary. All four main protagonists of the story lines were missing something in their lives, and trying to understand how to deal with what they lacked--by denial, action, indirect efforts, etc. Within their stories, there move two rich about-to-be-marrieds, the actress's maid and her boyfriend (whom we never meet), band-leader Xavier Cugat who is appearing at the hotel and agrees to play a song written by the soldier's dead comrade, the war correspondent's boss, a man from a State Department office also wooing the sheik, and the hotel staff--especially the banks of human female telephone operators and the stenographers. The B/W cinematography by Robert H. Planck is very good, and nearly all shot indoors; music was provided by Johnny Green and the Cugat band. Veteran Robert Z. Leonard directed, and somehow managed to give the film a consistent and lucid style all its own, no mean feat by my standards. The script altering the much darker play "Grand Hotel" was adapted by Guy Bolton and written by Sam and Sella Spewack. The sound by Douglas Shearer is remarkably adroit at all points. Art direction was performed by Daniel B. Cathcart and legendary Cedric Gibbons, with set decorations by Edwin B. Willis and Jack Bonar. Irene and Marion Herwood Keyes provided the many costumes. In the cast, Pigeon deserved an award for his work as the war correspondent, and Edward Arnold did a solid job as the shady promoter. Van Johnson played the soldier opposite Lana Turner, both being adequately cast; the Shiekh was George Zucco, the actress attractive Ginger Rogers, the maid Rosemary De Camp with a German accent. Keenan Wynn was lively as the young reporter, Robert Benchley provided low-key comedy and a narration here and there, Phyllis Thaxter was the nervous bride, Leon Ames was the actress's manager, with Jacqueline De Witt, Warner Anderson and Miles Mander in good roles also, along with the volatile Cugat. The film cannot really be compared to its illustrious half-brother; this narrative in my view was supposed to be and is a genial, only-slightly-cynical wartime film that extracted some people from the recent war and showed them trying to find a strong personal reason for living--whether as in the solider's case for great reasons or in the actress's case because she had put off thinking of herself for far too long. It is a charming, discursive and attractive project, in my estimation; and it could be remade very well, if the right leads could perhaps be found and the project given a third life in another great hostelry.

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.

"Week-end at the Waldorf" was MGM's attempt to cash in on its earlier success "Grand Hotel" (made in 1932) by re-using the idea of Vicki Baum's play and setting it in wartime.

So the ballerina becomes the actress (Garbo becomes Ginger Rogers), the Baron becomes the war correspondent (John Barrymore becomes Walter Pidgeon), the sick worker becomes the Captain with a heart problem (Lionel Barrymore becomes Van Johnson), and there is still a stenographer (Joan Crawford becomes Lana Turner). In support is the ever reliable Keenan Wynn as an eager-beaver cub reporter.

Where "Grand Hotel" was star-led and rather stagey, with an improbable plot and an air of glamour, "Week-end ..." is somewhat less starry, more cinematic but dull, and lacks the 30s glamour which ran through the earlier film. Rogers does well enough as the bored actress who is waiting for her next film premiere, and Johnson and Pidgeon are personable enough, but Turner doesn't seem to have enough to do and the film, although watchable, feels a little flat.

Something of a pointless exercise, really, as the original film, overall, was much better.

As in many movies made toward the end of World War Two, this film deals with some of the unpleasant effects on the personalities of those veterans who were part to the fighting. In this case, Captain James Hollis (Van Johnson) is amalgam of the troubled soldier: he needs an operation because of a fragment of shrapnel near his heart, he has no family, his friends were all killed in the war, and he is suffering from battle fatigue. This is all complicated in that he is seen as not having the "will to live." He is a hero looking for a long rest, hounded by a war correspondent. These images are quite different from those one finds in the propaganda films of 1940-1943. With victory in sight in 1945, the walking wounded needed help since battle shock was being recognized as a malady of warfare. As a film this is a fairly classy production, with good writing and a host of respectable actors in solid roles. Best of all, the film contrasts glamour on the homefront with the agony of soldiering. Week-ends may be short, but the lasting effect of this "Week-end at the Waldorf" echoes through the decades.