Movie Monday: Hotel Berlin

Movie Monday: Hotel Berlin

As WWII progressed, Hollywood continued to release a combination of fluffy, “escapism” films and wartime dramas. Hotel Berlin is one of the latter and based upon the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel (People at a Hotel) written by Austrian author Vicki Baum (no relation to L. Frank Baum of Oz fame) as a WWI story. The novel was published in English as Grand Hotel, then made into a film with the same name three years later starring Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, and Wallace Beery.

Born January 24, 1888, Ms. Baum had a difficult childhood with a mother who suffered from mental illness and a father, who according to Wikipedia was a “tyrannical, hypochondriac” man. She played harp and played in the Vienna Concert Society where she met and married Max Prels, a journalist. In addition to her music, she enjoyed writing and published her first short story under her married name. She continued to write and found a job as a journalist with the magazine Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. The marriage didn’t last, and the couple divorced four years later, but she continued with her writing career, and married her second husband, conductor Richard Lert in 1916.

According to the Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, Ms. Baum sold her harp after the

birth of first son in 1917 to concentrate on her writing career. She published her first novel in 1920 and subsequently published a book a year. Eight years later her book Stud. chem. Helene Willfüer, a story about “the New Woman,” did quite well and sold more than one hundred thousand copies in three years. Then came Menschen im Hotel, which brought her international success.

She traveled to the US in 1931 and remained for seven months. Upon her return to Germany, she realized what was happening, and after the 1932 elections for chancellor, she packed up her family and emigrated to America where they settled in Los Angeles. She found a job as a scriptwriter, and Richard was appointed conductor of the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra. Many of her novels written after this time involve the situation National-Socialist Germany.

Hotel Berlin was filmed between November 15, 1944 and January 15, 1945, then rushed into final production so it could be released on March 2, 1945 to coincide with the Russian and Allied drives in Berlin. The plot summarization from IMDb says it best, “in 1945, a strange mix of Germans, military personnel and civilians, pro-Nazi and anti-Nazi, celebrities and escaped prisoners, converges as a lavish hotel in heavily bombed Berlin.”

The movie features Faye Emerson, an actress who did well during the 1940s then transition to television in the 1950s; Helmut Dantine, an Austrian who spent three months in a concentration camp before being released and emigrating to the US; Raymond Massey, a Canadian actor who served in both WWI and WWII in the Canadian forces; and Peter Lorre, a Hungarian-Jew who left Germany after Hitler came to power and became a mainstay in mystery and crime films.

Earning nearly three million dollars on a $940,000 budget, Hotel Berlin received mixed reviews. A fun fact: Elliott Roosevelt (son of President Franklin Roosevelt) married Faye Emerson during the filming which supposedly led to a change giving her top billing. It’s all in who you know!

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The American WWII Home Front in 29 Objects

Unlike Europe the American mainland escaped physical devastation during World War II as it was not subjected to full-scale invasions. However, that didn’t mean the United States wasn’t impacted by the war. The ramifications of large economic, cultural, and societal changes forced Americans to reconsider entrenched beliefs and traditions.

Artifacts collected from across the nation tell the stories of the American people whose lives were shaped by this second “war to end all wars,” World War II.

Project Link (Be sure to click "Notify me on launch": https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lindashentonmatchett/the-world-war-ii-home-front-in-29-objects-illustrated-book

Photo Credits:

Vicki Baum: By Max Fenichel - Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Bilddatenbank., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42391177 

Movie Poster: Public Domain

Movie Scene: Courtesy IMDb/Warner Bros.