Hotel Berlin (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Hotel Berlin |
| Original title | Hotel Berlin |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1945 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Godfrey |
| script |
Alvah Bessie , Jo Pagano |
| production | Louis F. Edelman |
| music | Franz Waxman |
| camera | Carl E. Guthrie |
| cut | Frederick Richards |
| occupation | |
| |
Hotel Berlin is an American feature film melodrama by Peter Godfrey with Raymond Massey , Peter Lorre , Helmut Dantine , Andrea King and Faye Emerson in the leading roles. The film is a further development of Vicki Baum's famous novel People in the Hotel and is based on the sequel Hotel Berlin '43 , also by Baum.
action
Berlin, in the final phase of the Second World War : The luxury hotel Berlin had to swap its former elegance for "Feldgrau" and is now a meeting and gathering point for all kinds of guests who couldn't be more different: high-ranking soldiers and spies , resistance fighters and convinced Nazis , a skilful actress with film star ambitions and a refugee from the Dachau concentration camp .
This refugee who has joined the anti-Nazi resistance is called Dr. Martin Richter and tries to go into hiding with the help of some employees in the Hotel Berlin. He is being hunted and wanted by a 150 percent partisan named Joachim Helm. Helm set up his headquarters here because he thinks the escapee is nearby. The former Nobel Prize laureate Professor Johannes König, a friend and fellow prisoner of the judge, is also staying at the Hotel Berlin . In order not to attract attention, the young judge hired himself out as a hotel waiter and in this context also served the young actress Lisa Dorn, who was courted by the regime. Lisa initially believes that Richter must be a Gestapo confidante who is supposed to monitor her like various other guests. Some high-ranking Nazi officers who, in view of a defeat of the Reich that can no longer be ruled out, are already planning initial disengagement movements, have also been relegated. The theft of a submarine that could get to South America is being considered. Another hotel guest is Armin van Dahnwitz, who once took part in an assassination attempt on Hitler and is now also trying to go into hiding here. A friend of his class, the gaunt and icy cold Baron von Stetten, recommends an honorable exit to one of the last conspirators who have not yet been caught: Dahnwitz should take his own life, preferably within the next 24 hours, before marriage the regime could get hold of him and make short work of him.
But Dahnwitz doesn't think about it. He wants to build a future with Lisa after the war and therefore plans to secretly escape to Sweden with his plane and her. Lisa is unwilling, however, because she still believes in the “final victory” and her great film career at home in Berlin and also rejects Dahnwitzen's proposal of marriage. Meanwhile, the situation in the Hotel Berlin is becoming more and more dangerous for the wrong waiter Richter. One of his accomplices among the hotel employees has been arrested, so Richter desperately wants to leave. Lisa reveals his true identity, but initially does not reveal it. He promised her that with the help of his friends in the resistance he would escape from war-torn Berlin if she was willing to help him out of the hotel again. When Lisa has to go to the theater for her performance, Richter crawls out of her hotel room window and seeks shelter with his old friend from their days in Dachau, Prof. König. From this he learns that the Nazis, led by Baron von Stetten, who also wants to leave Berlin, had offered him to set up an extensive laboratory for him in South America. Little does the king suspect that, as a persecuted person by the regime, he will later only serve as a fig leaf for new activities by old German Nazis in South America.
Tillie Weiler is another central figure in the intrigues surrounding the Hotel Berlin. The beautiful young woman works as a hostess in the hotel and should keep her eyes and ears open for the regime. While the king and judge are talking, she searches Lisa's suite and discovers a waiter's jacket that Richter left behind during his visit. Tillie immediately denounced the fugitive and hoped for a reward from Helm, but he left her empty-handed. When she leaves Helm's office disappointed, Tillie Weiler meets Frau Baruch, the mother of Max, her former Jewish employer and groom. Mrs. Baruch, who wanted to intercept Tillie, tells her that Max survived the concentration camp he was put in and was liberated by the Americans. Tillie starts to rethink, she couldn't forget Max. When Lisa Dorn returns to her room, she discovers Martin Richter, who is wearing a Nazi uniform. So he hopes to be able to leave the hotel unnoticed with Lisa's help. The Nazi helmet walking past the room listens to Lisa's door and triumphantly enters. Immediately a duel between the two men occurs, in which the judge kills Helm. In the meantime, van Dahnwitz sees no more chance of avoiding arrest and shoots himself, as von Stetten had advised him beforehand. When the hotel is searched for the missing Joachim Helm, his body is found in the elevator shaft. A number of SS men then surround the Hotel Berlin.
In order to be able to smuggle Richter out of the house, he is supposed to give a drunk man in SS uniform who is supported by Lisa. Such is the plan in which Lisa's admirer Major Kauders is unwittingly part of. But Baron von Stetten informs the actress that Helm's body has been found and that she would be suspected of having murdered the Nazi who was loyal to the regime. Thereupon Lisa offers her contact person from Stetten a deal: she will betray Martin Richter, if one would guarantee her safe conduct and the departure abroad. But it never comes to that: Richter's friends from the resistance kidnap Lisa and take her to her headquarters, where Tillie, Frau Baruch and Prof. König, who has now decided to turn down the Nazis' offer for South America, are waiting for them. When the judge learns of Lisa's disdainful attempt at treason, he shoots her in spite of all her attempts to explain her actions. When leading Nazis want to leave the Hotel Berlin, an Allied bomber squadron flies over the building and throws off their deadly burden.
Production notes
Filming began on November 15, 1944 and ended on January 15, 1945. The film premiered on March 2, 1945. The German premiere was as the original with subtitles in February 1977 as part of the 1940s film series "Hollywood and the Nazis".
The film cost $ 940,000 and grossed $ 2,840,000. This made Hotel Berlin a great box office success.
Warner Bros. boss Jack L. Warner took over the production management, Leo F. Forbstein the musical direction. John Hughes designed the film structures, while the exile and actress Trude Berliner worked as a dialogue coach for this film.
Reviews
Star critic James Agee saw the film as "the hardest possible routine in Warner's political melodramas, crammed full of sympathetic veterans."
In the lexicon of international film it says: “In an abundance of small and minute scenes as well as the most varied of characters, a multifaceted, albeit completely synthetic image of the twilight of the gods of the Third Reich unfolds. (…) Although the exaggerated abundance of content overwhelms film and viewer alike, it is at least reasonably staged and performed with a lot of routine. "
"Good cast makes the whole thing interesting in general."
"After five years of total war, this view of the life of the other side can hardly fail to be implausible, but the actors cheerfully enter the melodramatic moments."
Individual evidence
- ↑ cit. Adapted from Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 482
- ^ Hotel Berlin. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 28, 2019 .
Web links
- Hotel Berlin on Turner Classic Movies
- Complete review in Variety, March 7, 1945
- Hotel Berlin in the Internet Movie Database (English)