Palace Hotel (film)
Palace Hotel is a Swiss film from 1952. The film is about the personal drama and intrigues of the staff and guests of an internationally known hotel. In Germany the film was shown under the title Palast Hotel .
action
The Palace Hotel opens the winter season. The hotel manager has traveled to the USA on business and has handed over the management of the hotel to his wife. Although she knows a lot about the hotel industry, she reaches her limits when it comes to personnel management. At the start of the season, Fredy Kehl, who used to work as an assistant cook in the hotel, arrives to take up the promised position as a waiter. But the director ignores his excellent report from the hotel management school and puts him back in the kitchen on the grounds that he cannot speak Italian.
Fredy meets the pretty Italian maid Speranza and takes Italian lessons from her. The two fall in love and become a couple. Speranza raves about Fredy at her work and room colleague Emilie. The next day, Emilie's son Walter unexpectedly shows up at the hotel. As it turns out, Walter lost a briefcase with over 1,800 francs while running an errand for his apprenticeship company "Caprez Brothers Brothers", which Emilie is now claiming back. In her need, Emilie turns to Consul Rainer and his wife, who have been regular guests at the hotel for many years. The consul can not only negotiate the demand of the "Caprez Brothers Wine Shop" down to 1,000 francs, but also gives the penniless Emilie the money. Emilie has thus violated the rules of the management and must expect to be dismissed without notice if it emerged that she had borrowed money from a guest.
Head heater Hunziker also has money worries. He embezzled money from the club's coffers and has to put it back into the coffers by the end of the year. Otherwise the club president Buol threatened to bring the matter to the board.
The preparations for the New Year's Eve party are in full swing. Because of dust health problems, Fredy's dream comes true: he is promoted to the waiter on the first floor. When in the guest room Dr. Suvalà 300 US dollars disappear if the director does not want to call the police, but instead conducts an investigation into the staff herself. In the process, she found a receipt for a postage payment of 1,000 francs from Emilie (300 US dollars corresponded to about 1,600 francs at the 1952 exchange rate). When Emilie doesn't want to explain how she got the money, the case seems clear to the director: Emilie is the thief of the 300 US dollars. Angry, she first wants to release her without notice, but then thinks about intervention and puts her in the kitchen as a punishment. Emilie carries her fate with dignity.
Walter is allowed to stay in the hotel and start an apprenticeship with the cellar master Loosli. When money is stolen in the wine cellar, he comes under suspicion. This suspicion is specifically fueled at the Hunziker staff meeting called by Staub. When Emilie confronts her son, it becomes clear that the two are strangers and that there is no trust between them. The argument culminates in Emilie's accusation that Walter could be the same liar as his late father. Loosli and Giachem are convinced of Walter and Emilie's innocence. Giachem recalls a method of how to convict a thief. In detective fashion, he lays money as bait. The notes are prepared with a chemical substance so that anyone who touches them gets black hands. The thief falls into the trap, but remains undetected for the time being.
Fredy also serves the beautiful Madame Perrot on the first floor. She lives in room 127, which is known to the staff as the " registry office " because two women have married young waiters out of this room. When she invites Fredy to go ice skating, he has hopes for the beautiful French woman. Speranza happened to see them on the ice rink and made a scene to Fredy. The two separate. Fredy's hopes are dashed when Madame Perrot's husband arrives at the hotel. When the impostor Dr. Suvalà wants to approach Speranza, she calls Fredy for help, and there is a violent argument between the men.
Dust bleeds on the leg and has to be hospitalized in an emergency. His daughter later received a phone call from the hospital that she had to come to her father immediately. Obviously things don't do well with dust.
In good time before the New Year, Loosli and Giachem can unmask the thief and secure the money. The director fetches Emilie personally from the kitchen in front of the other staff and puts her back on the floor. Fredy and Speranza make up.
Figures and cast
- Hotel staff
- Fredy , played by Paul Hubschmid, wants to move up from assistant cook to waiter . To do this, he attended further training and completed it with distinction. Because he doesn't speak Italian, the hotel manager puts him back in the kitchen anyway.
- Emilie , played by Käthe Gold , works as an Austrian chambermaid in the hotel. She is widowed and has a son who suddenly shows up at her hotel and puts her in great financial difficulties.
- Speranza , played by Liliana Tellini , is an Italian housekeeper who gives Fredy Italian lessons and begins a relationship with him.
- The hotel manager , played by Anne-Marie Blanc , runs the hotel as the perfect lady in the absence of her husband, who is traveling to the USA. Because of various money thefts and the associated intrigues among the staff, she has reached her limits and doubts whether she is in the right place.
- Staub , played by Emil Hegetschweiler , has been working in the hotel for 34 years and is something like the good soul of the house. His colleagues show him great respect. Unfortunately, he has serious health problems.
- Hunziker , played by Max Haufler , is the grumpy top heater of the hotel who embezzled money from the club's treasury and is therefore put under pressure by club president Buol , played by Schaggi Streuli . It has to find the missing money in the old year.
- Walter , played by Otto Zehnder , is Emilie's son. He turns up unexpectedly at his mother's house and gets her into great trouble.
- Giachem , played by Zarli Carigiet , is the hotel's pastry chef and is particularly popular with the female staff because he likes to spoil them with sweets. He is the only Graubünden member of the staff.
- Loosli , played by Gustav Knuth , is the hotel's cellar master with his heart in the right place. He not only takes Walter into an apprenticeship and defends him and his mother against all suspicions, but can ultimately also convict the thief.
- Jerôme Leblanc , played by Alfred Rasser , has been the hotel's choleric chef for 21 years . He complains about the lack of staff in the kitchen and freaks out when Fredy is transferred to the floor.
- Guests
- Consul and Consul Rainer , played by Heinz Woester and Else Bötticher , are regular guests at the hotel. The consul was marked by the deadly disease. Since the doctors give him at best another year to live, this should be his last visit to the hotel.
- Madame Perrot , played by Claude Farell , is a regular at the hotel who came for the first time without her husband.
- Dr. Suvalà , played by Lukas Ammann , is a seedy guest who stays at the hotel under a new name and with a different passport .
Production and publication
Actually, Max Ophüls should have directed “Palace Hotel” based on a script by Richard Schweizer . When he had to cancel at the last moment for scheduling reasons, the actor Leonard Steckel and the cameraman Emil Berna stepped in for him. A characteristic Swiss film with top cast was made under her direction.
The language of the film takes a bit of getting used to, a mixture of standard German and Swiss German. It was apparently chosen because of the international occupation; at least there is evidence of this in the original manuscript of the film. The studio Bellerive in Zurich served as a studio . The exterior shots were shot in St. Moritz , Switzerland and show the Grand Hotel Palace and its surroundings. The buildings were designed by Jean d'Eaubonne and Adolf Rebsamen , while Oscar Düby and Uors von Planta were in charge of production . It was distributed by Praesens-Film AG, Zurich. The film opened in Swiss cinemas on April 14, 1952. In Germany, the film was first seen on August 29, 1952 in Frankfurt am Main .
The well-known singer Lys Assia interpreted Walter Baumgartner's specially composed hit song “Happiness is not out of this world”. Thanks to its popular and international cast, the film was successfully sold abroad.
The film has been available in a version restored by Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) and the Swiss Film Archive since 2014 . After the original negatives had been destroyed by chemical processes, later negative and positive copies had to be used. This new version was shown in the cinema for the first time at the Zurich Film Festival in September 2014 and has since been shown on SRF's program.
Awards
- The FBL awarded the film the title valuable .
- The film was recommended as "best film of the month" (October) by the Evangelical Film Guild.
Reviews
«A well-designed, artistic entertainment film with great acting performances and a beautiful humanity lovingly worked out by the directors Leonhard Steckel and Emil Bernhard. Real figures from life are thrown onto the canvas. " (Rudolf Brendemühl, Telegraf, October 29, 1952)
“In an internationally known hotel, the staff who are busy preparing for the season go through personal dramas and intrigues. The difficult lot of the chambermaid Emilie, the striving for success of the waiter Fredy and the wet and happy adventures of the cellar master Loosli are intertwined by an exciting crime story and round up to the humorous picture of the life of the servant ghosts in the Palace Hotel. » (Lichtspiel Bern, March 2015)
Web links
- Palace Hotel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Program information from SRF
- Film information at cineman
- 13th Zurich Film Festival
- Film podium Zurich
- Pictures, film posters and the manuscript of the film in PDF format on Cyranos.ch
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , pp. 284 f.