Click here for the review of Grand Hotel (1932)

Best Picture winner at the 1932 (late year) Oscar ceremony.

Before I saw Grand Hotel, I was told that it was hopelessly dated and soap-opera-ish, but watching it for the first time I was very pleasantly surprised. Even if you've never heard of any of its actors, you can feel the star power oozing off the screen. John Barrymore is a famous name, but his performance kinda lacks energy. Lionel, on the other hand, is successful in going over-the-top. So is Wallace Beery, but perhaps slightly less so. Joan Crawford is great, and Garbo's presence knows few equals in cinema. I would take her over Dietrich any day. The movie itself is the original ensemble picture, preceding everything from Nashville to Magnolia. I think it holds up pretty decently today, and is more fun to watch than a lot of other 30s flicks that have dated terribly. JB didn't mention the sixth big name, Lewis Stone. Maybe not a huge name, but he does have a nice line that opens and closes the movie; it may seem a bit trite, but I think it still works.

I haven't seen that many Best Picture winners, but Grand Hotel is easily the least of them. I wouldn't call it a bad picture, but I don't consider it a good one either. Unless you're a fan of one of the actors or the director, I wouldn't recommend seeing this.

I'd put this toward the bottom of the middle rank of Oscar winners, but it's an enjoyable film, and John Barrymore and Joan Crawford are both excellent. Crawford is the best thing in the movie, and, for once in her career, is genuinely likable. I think the lack of secondary nominations is partly because of a lack of supporting acting categories, which is where I would put John Barrymore. He's also good in Dinner at Eight and great in Twentieth Century. His brother is pretty annoying here; he's much better in Dinner at Eight.

I consider Dinner at Eight to be a rather weak film; vastly inferior to Grand Hotel. The two films are nearly identical in plot structure, with Dinner being a cheap rip-off of Hotel.

AFAIK Dinner at Eight is based on a play of the same name. Perhaps the story was tweaked for the screen to resemble Grand Hotel, but either way, it's still an original work. Quality wise, I think both films are interchangeable. I found both to be quite average pictures.

One thing that struck me about Dinner at Eight is that the characters played by Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery are so similar to those of Judy Holliday and Broderick Crawford in Born Yesterday.