Hotel reserve

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Hotel reserve
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1944
length 118 minutes
Rod
Director Mutz Greenbaum
Lance Comfort
Victor Hanbury
script Eric Ambler
John Davenport
production Mutz Greenbaum
Lance Comfort
Victor Hanbury
music Lennox Berkeley
camera Mutz Greenbaum
cut Sidney Stone
occupation

Hotel Reserve is a 1943 British feature film directed by Mutz Greenbaum , Lance Comfort and Victor Hanbury, starring James Mason and Lucie Mannheim . The agent story is based on the novel Epitaph for a Spy (1938) by Eric Ambler , who also wrote the script adapted by John Davenport.

action

In the summer of 1938, shortly after the Nazis invaded his old homeland, Austria, from which he had to flee, the student Peter Vadassy is on the Côte d'Azur , where he is on vacation at the Reserve Hotel. Here he plans to celebrate his graduation from medical studies as well as the impending acquisition of French citizenship. When he wants to pick up a photo film that has been handed in for development from the local pharmacy, two policemen enter the shop and take him away. He is taken to the police station, where a certain Michel Beghin from the French naval secret service is already waiting and then questioning him. Peter's photographic negatives show photos of French fortifications outside of Toulon, and Vadassy suddenly comes under suspicion of being a German spy. Peter knows that he has not done anything illegal and firmly believes that his camera must have been swapped with that of the real spy. But only one other tourist comes into question, who must also be staying at the Hotel Reserve. Peter is therefore supposed to return to the hotel on Beghin's behalf to find out who has the same type of camera as him if he does not want to go to jail.

Back at the hotel, Vadassy begins his detective work. He listens and observes, listens and investigates. Peter sees a certain Emil Schimler having a "suspicious" conversation with the hotel owner Madame Suzanne Koch. He searches his room and finds several passports, each with different names and nationalities. Schimler catches Vadassy in the act, but can explain his multiple identities: He is the social democratic newspaper publisher Paul Heimberger, who was first arrested and then imprisoned by the Nazi rulers for his anti-Nazi press activities. After his release from prison, he decided to go underground and eventually flee abroad. But then Peter Vadassy makes the decisive discovery. He sees his camera in the pocket of a bathrobe that belongs to the French wedding couple Odette and André Roux. This couple is on their honeymoon at Hotel Reserve. André Roux, who has already suspected that Peter must be in possession of his film because of the same type of camera they are using, first tries to bribe Peter to give him the negatives and then threatens him with a revolver.

At that moment, the overzealous Monsieur Beghin seems to screw everything up and the French police arrest Peter Vadassy for espionage. Madame and Monsieur Roux then flee from the hotel, but Heimberger, an exile who has become Peter's most active supporter, tries to override the getaway car to prevent the Rouxs from leaving the hotel hastily. André Roux then shoots the brave saboteur. The couple rush to Toulon without knowing that they are being followed by the police. Beghin, however, had been planning things that way all along, using Peter Vadassy merely as a decoy and a means to an end to pressure the spies into making a mistake and getting out of cover. The Rouxs arrive at an abandoned warehouse near the Toulon docks, the seat of an enemy ring of agents. Finally, the French defense can find out to whom the Rouxs pass the information and with the imminent arrest of the couple of agents, the entire spy ring is blown up. André Roux, however, escapes arrest. While he is piling up, Peter follows him. A showdown takes place on a roof: Roux slips and falls into the depths, to his death.

Production notes

Hotel Reserve was created in 1943 at Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire and premiered in London on June 1, 1944. The strip was never seen in Germany.

EJ Holding was production manager, William C. Andrews created the film structures. Arthur Ibbetson was a simple cameraman. Muir Mathieson studied Lennox Berkeley's film composition as a conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra .

Reviews

The Radio Times called the film a "subtle thriller" and judged, "The plot has enough tension and intrigue built in, but this film only comes to life properly when Mason discovers who the real villain ... is."

The Movie & Video Guide wrote: "Exciting, atmospheric film".

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Slow, obvious and poorly made thriller based on a good novel".

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review in the Radio Times
  2. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 598
  3. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 482

Web links