Hotel (1967)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

I've read The novel 15 years ago. I've read it again a week ago. Both times I was amazed by the descriptions, the crises, the characters, the internal dialog, the struggle, and the richness of each character. Unfortunately, I've watched the movie only an hour ago, and I wish I didn't. Everything is superficial. I consider squeezing the wonderful novel into two hours, without preserving the spirit of the novel or its characters is a very bad job. I understand that canceling an entire character could happen because of the time. However, canceling key characters, and wasting the time instead with unnecessary scenes, that what I cannot understand. Arthur Hailey made me live and feel the back stage of a hotel... the crises that could happen in hotels and how to handle them efficiently without effecting the atmosphere around the gussets. I've felt nothing when I was watching the movie. Not even one character was written as it should be. The ending is different, the music is annoying. The ingenuity and the patience of Keycase techniques were demolished into nothing. The professionalism of Peter's work, his caring about the hotel, his fear of losing his job, his fear of his past, all that wasn't in the movie. Warrant's feeling of the slow death of his beloved hotel wasn't in the movie. The loving, caring, generous character of Kristine was canceled. Walt's character, The KEY-PIECE of the puzzle was canceled. Then what was left? The screen play writer left and canceled all that for what? For writing scenes with Jazz music? with a Jazz singer? Were that important? What I felt is this: the movie is an ugly metamorphoses of the novel.

From 1967, "Hotel" is based on the book by Arthur Hailey, who wrote the original "Airport" and more importantly, "Zero Hour," the inspiration for "Airplane!" "Hotel" concerns the last day of the elegant St. Gregory Hotel in New Orleans. Some years later, Hailey's work would be credited for several episodes on the TV series "Hotel," also about the St. Gregory, this time in San Francisco.The film boasts a top cast, starring Rod Taylor, Melvyn Douglas, Merle Oberon, Karl Malden, Kevin McCarthy, Richard Conte, Camilla Sparv, Carmen McRae, and Michael Rennie. Each character deals with a life-changing moment: the manager, McDermott (Taylor) and the owner Trent (Douglas) face the end of an era, while McDermott falls for the girlfriend (Sparv) of a man with a chain of hotels who wants the St. Gregory (McCarthy); Karl Malden is a thief working the hotel; Oberon and Rennie fled the scene of an auto accident and Oberon now wants the telltale car removed by Conte. Carmen McRae plays the lounge singer."Hotel" is entertaining and the performances are decent, with the possible exception of Camilla Sparv, who in the '60s was touted as a great beauty and is treated as such in the film. She is pretty boring, and as far as I'm concerned, can't hold a candle to the stunning Oberon. Fifty-six at the time of the film's release, Oberon was one of the first actresses to address aging in films and was quite open about efforts to keep her looks. She was successful. Rennie as her husband is very handsome, though he doesn't have a lot to do.Entertaining.

This is one of those multi-narrative, all-star movies about diverse people being their dynamic selves in a vast enclosed space, missing only Max von Sydow as the resident psychiatrist. And, man, this is one grand hotel -- the St. Gregory in New Orleans, where twelve presidents have stayed. It's huge, it's rococo, it's prohibitively expensive except for presidents, people on expense accounts, CEOs of major corporations, and my plumber, Dan.But there's a rub. The St. Gregory may be the ne plus ultra of elegance but it's old fashioned and it's losing money. The crusty owner of the place, Douglas, refuses to change. He's stuck in the eternal zugzwang. He's known all his employees for years, he likes the marble pillars and the over-sized fountain in the lobby, and he endorses his policy of segregation. He doesn't understand all this new stuff, "unions, civil rights, indoor baseball -- MOTELS." His general manager, the skilled and savvy Rod Taylor, understands it but would like to preserve what he can of the traditional opulence while adapting to changing circumstances. Unfortunately, he's the victim of a plot that drags him away by the gonads from his post at the hotel, allowing some chicanery by a potential buyer to take place. But it's too complicated to get into.Rod Taylor is reassuringly himself, handsome, robustly masculine. I saw him in a recent movie and he's aged magnificently. His eyeballs bulge, his face is now one flab upon another, and his ears are those of the African elephant. He looks great. Catherine Spaak is the reformed spy. She's conventionally attractive, her features are inexpressive but her voice carries an infinity of subtexts. Comic relief is provided by Karl Malden as the hotel thief who scurries from room to room, pocketing cash, expensive watches, jewelry, and whatnot. He's fine too in an amusing role, with his bulbous nose and clownish smile. His last act, as he's being led away in cuffs by the police, is to pocket a hotel ash tray.For what it's worth, the Statler Hotel School at Cornell was about the most prestigious in the country, though you don't hear much about it outside of hotel management circles. Snobby and even semi-snobby universities have always been a little ashamed of their specialized programs. The thing is to be a proud, defiant liberal arts college. It took Harvard a couple of hundred years to finally establish a school of medicine or law. More pragmatic schools have no such difficulty. The old, fancy universities, in resisting specialization, were much in the position of old Melvyn Douglas, owner of the St. Gregory. There's a curious shot of the ancient, creaking potentate complaining about "all this new stuff" while the camera lingers on his fat, elderly dog who shifts slightly to a more comfortable position. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, you know.It's unusual -- I realize that -- but I'd like to dedicate this poor review to Zani. You'll notice I used the word "zugzwang" earlier. I'd never heard of the damned thing before she told me what it meant. (It's from German and means "pulled in two different directions.") Zani, I can -- excuse me, I'm all choked up -- I can't thank you enough. For me -- sob -- for me, the world wouldn't exist without that word. (Sniff.)

Big, colorful, lavish, HOTEL is a very nice movie. It's set in New Orleans' French Quarter, and Warner Brothers even managed to get the NOPD star-and-crescent badges on the police officers' uniforms correct...a nice attention to detail. Even the music was properly scored to the locales depicted...another plus. True, most of the movie was shot on WB's back lots, but some of the French Quarter scenes were actually shot in New Orleans.An all-star cast performs more than adequately, but Karl Malden literally steals the movie! He plays a sneak-thief named "Keycase", and he obviously played his role with relish. In one wonderful scene, he surveys his loot after a harrowing evening's thieving, and sadly mutters "It's those damned credit cards!" If you remember that Malden later became the American Express man ("Don't leave home without it!"), this scene is priceless.Another classic is when the cops finally get him. Handcuffed to a NOPD officer, Malden can't help but swipe a hotel ashtray as he's being led to jail...grinning happily the whole time.It's great entertainment, and I rate it 9 out of 10.