Grand Hotel (novel)

Last updated

Grand Hotel (original German Menschen im Hotel, "People in the Hotel") is a 1929 novel by Vicki Baum, which was the basis for the 1932 film Grand Hotel . [1] It should not be confused with Berlin Hotel (original German Hotel Berlin), published in 1945, which deals with the situation in Germany towards the end of World War II. The film Grand Hotel was remade as Week-End at the Waldorf (1945).

Baum first adapted the novel herself later in 1929 for an eponymous play, and it was adapted again in 1930 in the United States by William A. Drake and in 1931 in Britain by Edward Knoblock as Grand Hotel . Much later, it became a successful 1989 musical which is still regularly revived around the world.

A very successful English translation, by Basil Creighton, was published in 1930 by Geoffrey Bles, London.

In later times, "Grand Hotel" came to be the unofficial name for a subgenre of novels. Thus, The New York Times review of Paul Gallico's 1969 book The Poseidon Adventure , about a group of passengers attempting to escape from a capsized ocean liner, noted that "Mr. Gallico collects a Grand Hotel of shipboard dossiers. These interlocking histories may be damp with sentimentality as well as brine—but the author's skill as a storyteller invests them with enough suspense to last the desperate journey."

Related Research Articles

<i>Grand Hotel</i> (1932 film) Adaptation of William Drake play

Grand Hotel is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The screenplay by William A. Drake is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum. To date, it is the only film to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated in any other category.

<i>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz</i> 1900 childrens novel by L. Frank Baum

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1900 children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home by a cyclone. Upon her arrival in the magical world of Oz, she learns she cannot return home until she has destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Isherwood</span> English-American novelist

Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include Goodbye to Berlin (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical Cabaret; A Single Man (1964), adapted as a film by Tom Ford in 2009; and Christopher and His Kind (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the Gay Liberation movement".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erich Kästner</span> German author, poet and satirist (1899–1974)

Emil Erich Kästner was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including Emil and the Detectives. He received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1960 for his autobiography Als ich ein kleiner Junge war. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in six separate years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Roth</span> Austrian novelist and journalist

Moses Joseph Roth was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga Radetzky March (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life Job (1930) and his seminal essay "Juden auf Wanderschaft", a fragmented account of the Jewish migrations from eastern to western Europe in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution. In the 21st century, publications in English of Radetzky March and of collections of his journalism from Berlin and Paris created a revival of interest in Roth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Gallico</span> American writer and journalist (1897–1976)

Paul William Gallico was an American novelist and short story and sports writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures. He is perhaps best remembered for The Snow Goose, his most critically successful book, for the novel The Poseidon Adventure, primarily through the 1972 film adaptation, and for four novels about the beloved character of Mrs. Harris.

A grand hotel is a large and luxurious hotel, especially one housed in a building with traditional architectural style. It began to flourish in the 1800s in Europe and North America.

<i>Grand Hotel</i> (musical)

Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis, music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, and additional music and lyrics by Maury Yeston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicki Baum</span> Austrian writer

Hedwig "Vicki" Baum was an Austrian writer. She is known for the novel Menschen im Hotel, one of her first international successes. It was made into a 1932 film and a 1989 Broadway musical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hotel Adlon</span> Building in Berlin–Mitte, Germany

The Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin is a luxury hotel in Berlin, Germany. It is on Unter den Linden, the main boulevard in the central Mitte district, at the corner with Pariser Platz, directly opposite the Brandenburg Gate.

<i>Hotel Berlin</i> 1945 film

Hotel Berlin is an American drama film set in Berlin near the close of World War II, made by Warner Bros. in late 1944 to early 1945. Directed by Peter Godfrey, it stars Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey and Andrea King. It is based on the novel Hotel Berlin by Vicki Baum, a sequel to Menschen im Hotel, which was itself adapted to film as Grand Hotel (1932).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hotel Excelsior</span> Hotel in Berlin, Germany

Hotel Excelsior was a hotel in Berlin, Germany. It occupied number 112/113, Königgrätzer Straße on Askanischer Platz in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. It was once one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in Europe but its destruction during World War II resigned it to the German capital's list of lost historical landmarks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Knoblock</span> American-born British writer

Edward Knoblock was a playwright and novelist, originally American and later a naturalised British citizen. He wrote numerous plays, often at the rate of two or three a year, of which the most successful were Kismet (1911) and Milestones. Many of his plays were collaborations, with, among others, Vicki Baum, Beverley Nichols, J. B. Priestley and Vita Sackville-West.

<i>Imperial Palace</i> (novel)

Imperial Palace is the last and longest novel by author Arnold Bennett.

<i>The Grand Babylon Hotel</i>

The Grand Babylon Hotel is a novel by Arnold Bennett, published in January 1902, about the mysterious disappearance of a German prince. It originally appeared as a serial in the Golden Penny. The titular Grand Babylon was modelled on the Savoy Hotel which Bennett had much later also used as a model for his 1930 novel Imperial Palace.

Hanns Kräly, credited in the United States as Hans Kraly, was a German actor and screenwriter. His main collaborations were with director Ernst Lubitsch, and they worked together on 30 films between 1915 and 1929. In 1930, their longstanding partnership and with that much of Kräly's reputable career as a screenwriter came to an end due to an affair he was having with Lubitsch's then-wife Helene Krauss. Kräly is also notable for his comedy play Kohlhiesel's Daughters which has been turned into films on a number of occasions.

Menschen im Hotel is a 1959 German and French black-and-white drama film directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, and produced by Artur Brauner. It starred O.W. Fischer, Michèle Morgan, Heinz Rühmann and Gert Fröbe. The screenplay was written by Ladislas Fodor and Hans Jacoby, based on the 1929 novel by Vicki Baum. The film is a remake of the 1932 classic Grand Hotel.

Seymour Nebenzal was an American-born Jewish-German film producer. He produced 46 films between 1927 and 1961.

Grand Hotel is a 1931 play by the British-American writer Edward Knoblock. A drama, it is based on the 1929 German novel Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum about guests staying at a Grand Hotel in Berlin.

<i>Hotel Berlin</i> (novel) 1943 novel by Vicki Baum

Hotel Berlin is 1943 novel by the Austrian-born writer Vicki Baum. She had fled into exile following the Nazi takeover. The novel is set in a luxury hotel in Berlin during the later stages of the Second World War. It echoes the theme of Baum's best-known novel Grand Hotel which was first published in 1929 on the brink of the Great Depression. Some editions are entitled Hotel Berlín 1943 and others Berlin Hotel.

References

  1. Bettina Matthias (1 January 2006). The Hotel as Setting in Early Twentieth-century German and Austrian Literature: Checking in to Tell a Story. Harvard University Press. p. 192. ISBN   978-1-57113-321-2.