Hotel Reserve (1946)

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Hotel Reserve could had been a great wartime thriller under the hands of a better director with a more polished script.Set in 1938, James Mason is Peter Vadassy who staying at the Hotel Reserve in the south of France. He is a medical student, teaches languages to make ends meet and likes taking photographs as a hobby.He was born in Austria but has resided in France and hopes to be naturalised soon as a French citizen. He plans to be working as a doctor soon.Vadassy is suddenly arrested and accused of being a German spy. The photos he sent to be developed had photos of military installations. Luckily for Vadassy the authorities know he is innocent and his camera was mistakenly switched. They plan to use him as a decoy to flush out the real spy that is staying at the hotel. Vadassy has no option but to go along with the plan and turns detective when he returns to the hotel.It is nice to see a breezy performance from Mason who so often used to appear as brooding. However the film becomes too plodding as it really was a propaganda B movie made in 1944. He needed to be paired up with a strong female character that really does not happen here.

HOTEL RESERVE is a film that hasn't dated very well since its release during WW2; I'm guessing wartime audiences would have had a more emotional reaction to the storyline. It's a spy mystery set in and around a hotel in France in the years immediately preceding WW2, and the erstwhile hero of the piece is a young and breezy James Mason, who's wrongly accused of being a spy and who is then blackmailed into figuring out which of the suspects staying at the hotel is the real Nazi.Despite the intriguing set-up with its shades of Agatha Christie, this is largely a slice of hokum that goes nowhere. The running time feels at least twice as long as it actually is, and in terms of action, suspense and danger there's virtually zero to be found here. The director can just about muster up a relatively suspenseful scene at the climax, but up until that point the viewer is treated to endless scenes of talking, quasi-romance, and general boredom.Mason is an able actor but he has little to do in his central role, a role which offers little depth for any actor. Herbert Lom is better as one of the suspects, as he's able to bring his trademark darkness to the part, but the rest of the cast seems to be populated by caricatures instead of real people. There's not much here at all for modern audiences to engage with.

A small number of people are resident at the "Hotel Reserve" which is meant to be in France but is clearly on a studio set. It is up to one of the residents, Peter Vadassy (James Mason) to find out which guest is a Nazi spy. The cast are split into 2 groups. First of all, there are the good actors who portray interesting characters - Emil Schimler (Frederick Valk) - bad/good guy with a secret?, the female hotel owner - bad/good girl?, Andrew Roux (Herbert Lom) - bad/innocent guy? and the main police inspector - a good guy that knows more than the audience/James Mason. Set against this are the rest of the cast who are all buffoons, especially the Major (Anthony Shaw) and the fisherman (David Ward) who play their roles for laughs and who are never funny. There is also a pointless role for a French policeman who follows Vadassey around and he plays for humour. He is also not funny...............a mention must also go to Lucie Mannheim as the romantic interest for James Mason. She is dreadful and it is criminal that she is second-billed in this film. Neither her air-time nor her acting skills merit this lofty position. James Mason is OK and the film is a time-passer. Nothing more.

A young James Mason does a fine job in this film. The story is set a few years before the start of WW II. Mason is a guest at a quiet resort hotel in France. His camera is accidentally used by a German spy who has an identical one. When Mason takes a roll of film to be developed, the roll contains several pictures of top secret French aircraft and facilities. The police question Mason and are able to determine that he is innocent in the matter. But, they use the charges against him as leverage to get him to assist them in finding out which of the other hotel guests is the spy. How he succeeds makes for a most interesting and tension filled story.