Conrad Nagel, the handsome matinee idol and co-founder of the Academy Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was the host of the fifth annual Academy Awards on Nov. 18, 1932. The evening marked Nagel’s second stint at Oscars host; the then-academy prez had hosted the festivities two years earlier. He turned on the charm in his sophomore outing at the glamorous banquet at the Fiesta Room of the Ambassador Hotel honoring films released between Aug. 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932. (Nagel would later co-host the first televised Oscars with Bob Hope in 1953.)
Eight films vied for Best Picture: John Ford’s medical drama “Arrowsmith”; Frank Borzage’s marital drama “Bad Girl”; Mervyn LeRoy’s examination of tabloid journalism “Five Star Final,” Edmund Goulding’s stylish drama “Grand Hotel”; Ernst Lubitsch’s pre-Code musical comedies “One Hour with You” and “The Smiling Lieutenant”; and Josef von Sternberg’s luscious pre-Code melodrama “Shanghai Express,” starring his muse Marlene Dietrich.
Eight films vied for Best Picture: John Ford’s medical drama “Arrowsmith”; Frank Borzage’s marital drama “Bad Girl”; Mervyn LeRoy’s examination of tabloid journalism “Five Star Final,” Edmund Goulding’s stylish drama “Grand Hotel”; Ernst Lubitsch’s pre-Code musical comedies “One Hour with You” and “The Smiling Lieutenant”; and Josef von Sternberg’s luscious pre-Code melodrama “Shanghai Express,” starring his muse Marlene Dietrich.
- 2/23/2022
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will be taking a trip to Vienna for a six-week programming initiative including a symposium and film series with a distinct cinematic connection to that fabled Austrian city.
The museum announced today the series launch on December 10 and running through January 31. It is designed to explore what the museum describes as the “large community of predominately Jewish, Austrian-born film artists and professionals who helped shape the films and industry of classical era Hollywood.” Titled “Vienna in Hollywood: Emigres and Exiles in the Studio System,” the series is presented in collaboration with the USC Libraries and the USC Max Kade Institute. The Austrian Consulate General in L.A. also is offering support.
Bill Kramer, director and president of the Academy Museum, said: “During the classical Hollywood era, so many beloved films and so many components of the movie industry were developed and shaped by Austrian émigrés,...
The museum announced today the series launch on December 10 and running through January 31. It is designed to explore what the museum describes as the “large community of predominately Jewish, Austrian-born film artists and professionals who helped shape the films and industry of classical era Hollywood.” Titled “Vienna in Hollywood: Emigres and Exiles in the Studio System,” the series is presented in collaboration with the USC Libraries and the USC Max Kade Institute. The Austrian Consulate General in L.A. also is offering support.
Bill Kramer, director and president of the Academy Museum, said: “During the classical Hollywood era, so many beloved films and so many components of the movie industry were developed and shaped by Austrian émigrés,...
- 10/25/2021
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced Vienna in Hollywood, a new six-week program launching on Dec. 10 that explores the history of the predominantly Jewish, Austrian-born community of filmmakers and professionals who helped shape the classical era of Hollywood.
Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe including actor-director Erich von Stroheim and composer Max Steiner were major players in the early establishment of the American film industry in the 1920s. Due to Nazi persecution, a larger wave came in the ‘30s and ‘40s, bringing in talent such as the directors Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang; actors Hedy Lamarr and Peter Lorre; producers Eric Pleskow and Sam Spiegel; screenwriters Vicki Baum and Gina Kaus; and composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Ernest Gold. With a symposium and film series, Vienna in Hollywood will pay tribute to these artists and many more.
The two-day symposium is titled Vienna in Hollywood: The Influence and...
Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe including actor-director Erich von Stroheim and composer Max Steiner were major players in the early establishment of the American film industry in the 1920s. Due to Nazi persecution, a larger wave came in the ‘30s and ‘40s, bringing in talent such as the directors Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang; actors Hedy Lamarr and Peter Lorre; producers Eric Pleskow and Sam Spiegel; screenwriters Vicki Baum and Gina Kaus; and composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Ernest Gold. With a symposium and film series, Vienna in Hollywood will pay tribute to these artists and many more.
The two-day symposium is titled Vienna in Hollywood: The Influence and...
- 10/25/2021
- by Selome Hailu
- Variety Film + TV
“Grand Hotel. Nazis come. Nazis go. Nothing ever happens.” That’s a paraphrase from 1932’s Grand Hotel, indicating that the hallowed halls once occupied by Greta Garbo are now overrun with Warner Bros. contract players. As defeat looms, German officers, crooks, fugitives and ordinary citizens fumble for a way to survive. Writer and fervent anti-fascist Alvah Bessie almost didn’t — he would later be politically scourged as a member of The Hollywood Ten. Get set for a soap opera with swastikas.
Hotel Berlin
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 98 min. / Street Date March 6, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Alan Hale, George Coulouris, Henry Daniell, Peter Whitney, Helen Thimig, Steven Geray, Kurt Kreuger, Erwin Kalser, Torben Meyer, Jay Novello, Frank Reicher, John Wengraf.
Cinematography: Carl Guthrie
Film Editor: Frederick Richards
Original Music: Franz Waxman
Written by Alvah Bessie,...
Hotel Berlin
DVD
The Warner Archive Collection
1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 98 min. / Street Date March 6, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Alan Hale, George Coulouris, Henry Daniell, Peter Whitney, Helen Thimig, Steven Geray, Kurt Kreuger, Erwin Kalser, Torben Meyer, Jay Novello, Frank Reicher, John Wengraf.
Cinematography: Carl Guthrie
Film Editor: Frederick Richards
Original Music: Franz Waxman
Written by Alvah Bessie,...
- 3/31/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Noah Isenberg tells the story behind Vicki Baum's Grand Hotel, from its publication through its stage adaptations, including one starring Gustaf Gründgens, through to her attending the premiere of the MGM movie (featuring Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford) with Noël Coward. Also in today's roundup: The New Yorker's Richard Brody recommends Penny Lane's Nuts!, Anna Biller’s "wild and gory comedy" The Love Witch, Chad Hartigan’s Morris from America and Zia Anger's My Last Film. Plus an honorary Palme d'or for Jean-Pierre Léaud, news of forthcoming work from Jonás Cuarón, Bryan Cranston and Jesse Eisenberg and video essays on Raoul Walsh's Pursued and Leos Carax's The Lovers on the Bridge. » - David Hudson...
- 5/10/2016
- Keyframe
Noah Isenberg tells the story behind Vicki Baum's Grand Hotel, from its publication through its stage adaptations, including one starring Gustaf Gründgens, through to her attending the premiere of the MGM movie (featuring Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford) with Noël Coward. Also in today's roundup: The New Yorker's Richard Brody recommends Penny Lane's Nuts!, Anna Biller’s "wild and gory comedy" The Love Witch, Chad Hartigan’s Morris from America and Zia Anger's My Last Film. Plus an honorary Palme d'or for Jean-Pierre Léaud, news of forthcoming work from Jonás Cuarón, Bryan Cranston and Jesse Eisenberg and video essays on Raoul Walsh's Pursued and Leos Carax's The Lovers on the Bridge. » - David Hudson...
- 5/10/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Today in 1989, Grand Hotel opened at the Martin Beck Theatre now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where it ran for 1017 performances. Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston. Based on the 1929 Vicki Baum novel and play, Menschen im Hotel People in a Hotel, and the subsequent 1932 MGM feature film, the musical focuses on events taking place over the course of a weekend in an elegant hotel in 1928 Berlin and the intersecting stories of the eccentric guests of the hotel, including a fading prima ballerina a fatally ill Jewish bookkeeper, who wants to spend his final days living in luxury a young, handsome, but destitute Baron a cynical doctor and a typist dreaming of Hollywood success.
- 11/12/2015
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...
- 8/27/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...
- 2/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Cat People' 1942 actress Simone Simon Remembered: Starred in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic (photo: Simone Simon in 'Cat People') Pert, pouty, pretty Simone Simon is best remembered for her starring roles in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie Cat People (1942) and in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938). Long before Brigitte Bardot, Mamie Van Doren, Ann-Margret, and (for a few years) Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm in a film career that spanned a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both sides of the Atlantic – at times, with fatal results. During that period, Simon was featured in nearly 40 movies in France, Italy, Germany, Britain, and Hollywood. Besides Jean Renoir, in her native country she worked for the likes of Jacqueline Audry...
- 2/6/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Today in 1989, Grand Hotel opened at the Martin Beck Theatre now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where it ran for 1017 performances. Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston. Based on the 1929 Vicki Baum novel and play, Menschen im Hotel People in a Hotel, and the subsequent 1932 MGM feature film, the musical focuses on events taking place over the course of a weekend in an elegant hotel in 1928 Berlin and the intersecting stories of the eccentric guests of the hotel, including a fading prima ballerina a fatally ill Jewish bookkeeper, who wants to spend his final days living in luxury a young, handsome, but destitute Baron a cynical doctor and a typist dreaming of Hollywood success.
- 11/12/2014
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Today in 1989, Grand Hotel opened at the Martin Beck Theatre now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where it ran for 1017 performances. Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston. Based on the 1929 Vicki Baum novel and play, Menschen im Hotel People in a Hotel, and the subsequent 1932 MGM feature film, the musical focuses on events taking place over the course of a weekend in an elegant hotel in 1928 Berlin and the intersecting stories of the eccentric guests of the hotel, including a fading prima ballerina a fatally ill Jewish bookkeeper, who wants to spend his final days living in luxury a young, handsome, but destitute Baron a cynical doctor and a typist dreaming of Hollywood success.
- 11/12/2013
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Today in 1989, Grand Hotel opened at the Martin Beck Theatre now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where it ran for 1017 performances. Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston. Based on the 1929 Vicki Baum novel and play, Menschen im Hotel People in a Hotel, and the subsequent 1932 MGM feature film, the musical focuses on events taking place over the course of a weekend in an elegant hotel in 1928 Berlin and the intersecting stories of the eccentric guests of the hotel, including a fading prima ballerina a fatally ill Jewish bookkeeper, who wants to spend his final days living in luxury a young, handsome, but destitute Baron a cynical doctor and a typist dreaming of Hollywood success.
- 11/12/2012
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
Nine diverse characters brace for imminent Japanese attack in Durniok's 'Hotel Shanghai'
It's in the grand old "Grand Hotel" tradition and style, this epic entertainment from German producer Manfred Durniok, who is best known in the United States as the producer of the foreign-language Oscar winner "Mephisto".
Based on the book by Vicki Baum, "Hotel Shanghai" is a grand-scale entertainment set against the cataclysm of an impending war and peopled by a vast array of colorful international travelers. Admittedly, it's a bit old-fashioned in form and structure, but it's a decidedly juicy and intelligent evocation of a disjointed time and a dangerous place.
Edited into two forms -- Trident will release a 101-minute version in the States, while German TV will play a two-part, 178-minute miniseries -- "Hotel Shanghai" is an intriguing pastiche of one of China's most rough-and-tumble cities, certainly a locale not familiar to the eyes of Westerners. It was filmed entirely in Shanghai and, as such, takes us to heretofore forbidden film terrain. A co-production of Durniok, MDR German TV and Oriental Communications with the assistance of the Shanghai Film Studio, this production is perhaps most noteworthy for the international partnerships that producer Durniok has forged. In a most unusual coup, Durniok was allowed to do postproduction in his native land rather than in China, a wish not usually granted to foreign film producers.
Set in 1937, "Hotel Shanghai" is a billowing mixture of intrigue, passion, duplicity and heroism. It's set on the precipice of war: The Japanese attack is imminent, and the city is bracing for a bloody invasion.
In this sharp but sprawling pastiche, screenwriter Angel Wagenstein has sagely distilled Baum's novel to understandable, filmic dimension, focusing on nine diverse characters whose lives and fates are inextricably bound by the charged conditions of the imminent invasion. It's a lively mix of the super-rich and the world weary.
The performances are distinguished and nicely fleshed. In particular, Agnieszka Wagner ("Schindler's List") is radiantly strong-willed as a young woman caught up in a sticky love triangle, while Elliott Gould, as a seen-it-all vagabond, brings a welcomely jaded sensibility to the goings-on. Unfortunately, the dialogue is often thick and perfunctory.
Director Peter Patzak has fashioned a roiling entertainment, nicely transposing this sprawling story to a tight, filmic dimension. Technically, it's marvelous with its teeming visuals and captivating marches through old Shanghai. Highest praise to cinematographer Martin Stingl for the panoramic scopings, and particular praise to art director Qin Baisong for evoking the passions and terrors of the times.
HOTEL SHANGHAI
Trident Releasing
A Manfred Durniok film
Credits: Producer: Manfred Durniok; Director: Peter Patzak; Screenwriter: Angel Wagenstein; Based on the book by: Vicki Baum; Director of photography: Martin Stingl; Editors: Sylvia Hebel, Roberto Silvi; Music: Christian Bruhn; Art director: Qin Baisong. Cast: Madame Tissaud: Annie Giradot; Frank Taylor: James McCaffrey; Hutchinson: Elliott Gould; Helen Russell: Agnieszka Wagner; Bobbie Russell: Nicholas Clay; Sir Kingsdale-Smith: Patrick Ryecart; Kurt Planke: Robert Giggenbach; Ruth Anderson: Micah Taylor West; Pearl Chang: Min Zhang. Color; Running time: 101 minutes; no MPAA rating.
It's in the grand old "Grand Hotel" tradition and style, this epic entertainment from German producer Manfred Durniok, who is best known in the United States as the producer of the foreign-language Oscar winner "Mephisto".
Based on the book by Vicki Baum, "Hotel Shanghai" is a grand-scale entertainment set against the cataclysm of an impending war and peopled by a vast array of colorful international travelers. Admittedly, it's a bit old-fashioned in form and structure, but it's a decidedly juicy and intelligent evocation of a disjointed time and a dangerous place.
Edited into two forms -- Trident will release a 101-minute version in the States, while German TV will play a two-part, 178-minute miniseries -- "Hotel Shanghai" is an intriguing pastiche of one of China's most rough-and-tumble cities, certainly a locale not familiar to the eyes of Westerners. It was filmed entirely in Shanghai and, as such, takes us to heretofore forbidden film terrain. A co-production of Durniok, MDR German TV and Oriental Communications with the assistance of the Shanghai Film Studio, this production is perhaps most noteworthy for the international partnerships that producer Durniok has forged. In a most unusual coup, Durniok was allowed to do postproduction in his native land rather than in China, a wish not usually granted to foreign film producers.
Set in 1937, "Hotel Shanghai" is a billowing mixture of intrigue, passion, duplicity and heroism. It's set on the precipice of war: The Japanese attack is imminent, and the city is bracing for a bloody invasion.
In this sharp but sprawling pastiche, screenwriter Angel Wagenstein has sagely distilled Baum's novel to understandable, filmic dimension, focusing on nine diverse characters whose lives and fates are inextricably bound by the charged conditions of the imminent invasion. It's a lively mix of the super-rich and the world weary.
The performances are distinguished and nicely fleshed. In particular, Agnieszka Wagner ("Schindler's List") is radiantly strong-willed as a young woman caught up in a sticky love triangle, while Elliott Gould, as a seen-it-all vagabond, brings a welcomely jaded sensibility to the goings-on. Unfortunately, the dialogue is often thick and perfunctory.
Director Peter Patzak has fashioned a roiling entertainment, nicely transposing this sprawling story to a tight, filmic dimension. Technically, it's marvelous with its teeming visuals and captivating marches through old Shanghai. Highest praise to cinematographer Martin Stingl for the panoramic scopings, and particular praise to art director Qin Baisong for evoking the passions and terrors of the times.
HOTEL SHANGHAI
Trident Releasing
A Manfred Durniok film
Credits: Producer: Manfred Durniok; Director: Peter Patzak; Screenwriter: Angel Wagenstein; Based on the book by: Vicki Baum; Director of photography: Martin Stingl; Editors: Sylvia Hebel, Roberto Silvi; Music: Christian Bruhn; Art director: Qin Baisong. Cast: Madame Tissaud: Annie Giradot; Frank Taylor: James McCaffrey; Hutchinson: Elliott Gould; Helen Russell: Agnieszka Wagner; Bobbie Russell: Nicholas Clay; Sir Kingsdale-Smith: Patrick Ryecart; Kurt Planke: Robert Giggenbach; Ruth Anderson: Micah Taylor West; Pearl Chang: Min Zhang. Color; Running time: 101 minutes; no MPAA rating.
- 10/7/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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