Hotel Berlin

Plot synopsis:
The lives of various desperate people intersect at the Hotel Berlin, a hotbed of Nazis, officers, spies and ordinary Germans trying to weather the inevitable defeat. Martin Richter, a leader of the German underground who has escaped from Dachau concentration camp, is hiding there, aided by some of the staff. He is hunted by Joachim Helm, who has his headquarters in the same building. Another hotel guest is Nobel laureate Johannes Koenig, Richter's friend from before the war and in Dachau.
General Arnim von Dahnwitz, the last of the leaders of a plot against Hitler still at large, goes to his friend von Stetten to see if his clique can help him, but is told that nothing can be done. He has at best 24 hours to shoot himself and save the Nazi regime the embarrassment of publicly dealing with him. At the hotel, von Dahnwitz encounters Lisa Dorn, his lover and a famous actress. He asks Dorn to marry him and flee with him to Sweden, but she is aware his situation is hopeless and declines. Later, von Dahnwitz commits suicide.
Meanwhile, von Stetten is arranging for the escape of his group to South America, where they hope to secretly rebuild their strength for another grab at power. He invites Koenig to join them (to provide a cover for their activities).
Hotel "hostess" (and informant) Tillie Weiler warmly greets Major Kauders, a pilot determined to make the fullest use of a short leave. They quarrel and part when he finds her photograph of a man who he thinks looks Jewish. Later, Sarah Baruch comes to her and begs her help in getting medicine for her husband, dying of cancer. The older woman also reveals that her son Max, Tillie's former employer and love, is alive, having been liberated from a labor camp by the Allies. When they take shelter from an air raid in the basement, Sarah is recognized by Hermann Plotke, who orders her to put on the Star of David badge required of all Jews. This is too much for Tillie, who reveals to all that Plotke used to work in the Bauers' department store, until he was caught stealing. Max gave him another chance, only to have Plotke appropriate the business when the Nazis came to power. Plotke orders her arrest, but is himself taken into custody for stealing from the government.
Richter is given a waiter's uniform and sent to serve Dorn dinner in her suite. When she becomes suspicious, he is forced to reveal his identity. She offers to assist him in exchange for her own passage out of Germany. Later, however, Tillie snoops in Dorn's suite (envious of her extensive wardrobe) and finds a suspicious discarded waiter's jacket, which she reports to Helm. Helm captures Richter by himself, but Richter is able to disarm him and knock him out. He throws Helm down the shaft of a disabled elevator. Though the hotel is surrounded, Dorn persuades admirer Major Kauders to escort a seemingly drunk Richter (now in an SS uniform) through the cordon. When Richter sends word where to meet him, however, she betrays him. Fortunately, she is suspected, and her phone call to von Stettin is overheard. As a result, she is taken prisoner to the underground headquarters. Despite her desperate attempts to justify herself, Richter shoots her.

Tags: murder

Review:
Warner Brothers used none of their box office stars in making Hotel Berlin.
What they did do is use a whole lot of second line character players who had been playing Nazis throughout the World War II years.
The only two who didn't get into this film were Bobby Watson who played Hitler several times and Martin Kosleck who essayed Goebbels perfectly.If this film has a familiar look to it the author of the novel on which this is based is Vicki Baum who wrote MGM's Oscar winning Grand Hotel which covered Germany in the days before the Third Reich.
The book was written in 1943 and Warner Brothers barely got the film out as events were overtaking the story.Some of the most sinister of character players like George Coulouris, Kurt Kreuger, Alan Hale, Raymond Massey, Henry Daniell play various Nazi types.
Helmut Dantine who played some really nasty Nazis in Mrs. Miniver and Edge Of Darkness is our protagonist/hero in the main plot.
He does do so in the Hotel Berlin where all these folks are staying, but has to get out undetected.Raymond Massey has an interesting role as a Nazi general who got caught up in a plot against Hitler.
Now he's playing for time.For all the men in the story, the two main women's roles really dominate Hotel Berlin.
She turns out to have a bit more character than supposed in the end.Best in the film though is Andrea King in what might have been her career role as Fraulein Lisa Dorn, celebrated German actress who hobnobs with the high and low of the Third Reich.
She's a Nazi through and through, but a realist who just wants out of Germany and will use anyone to achieve her ends be it Massey, Dantine, Major Kurt Kreuger, or any whom she tries to charm.A bit over the top in wartime propaganda, Hotel Berlin holds up very well for today's audience..
Unusual because this film presents some Germans as good and tries to separate the Nazi regime from the ordinary population who just tried to survive the madness.
Very reminiscent of "Grand Hotel" -- not surprising since the author of the novel upon which the screenplay is based is the same Vicki Baum who wrote "Grand Hotel" and "Weekend at the Waldorf." Characters and sub-plots come and go with a central theme of the search for an escaping prisoner and the moral and physical decay of the Nazi regime.
Raymond Massey is quite good as General Arnim von Dahnwitz, an old-school officer who participated in the plot against the Corporal and is offered the honorable way out.
Entertaining war drama with a darker tenor than most studio films at the time.
The cast performs well but with the source material being from the author of Grand Hotel and a decent script it's a surprise that the players are more or less B level performers.That's not a swipe at any of them since they all play their parts well, although a more charismatic actor than Helmut Dantine, someone like James Mason, would have given better focus to the lead character's plight.
The audience is never fully sure what side her duplicitous Lisa Dorn is playing for which might have caused bigger stars such as Joan Crawford, Ann Sheridan and Alexis Smith to decline the role.The supporting cast is stocked with great character actors all getting the most out of their parts.
Good performances...Raymond Massey was particularly fine in a relatively low key role while Peter Lorre plays a repentant Nazi with equal effectiveness.
The female leads here are also great, especially Faye Emerson as the hotel "hostess." There are some dated elements of propaganda (a painting of Hitler hanging in hotel lobby prompts one guest to comment "I'd like to see him hanging another way") All the same this film offers thoughtful character studies of human beings at their best and worst while under duress.
What makes this film so much above the other anti Nazi propaganda films of it's time is that the whole Jewish prejudice issue is actually dealt with, (can only think of one other film in the WW2 era that even mentions it---The Mortal Storm (1940) another 4 star movie).
Warners B roster of character actors including Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Andrea King, Alan Hale, Philip Dorn, Faye Emerson (who steals the movie as the hotel prostitute)and all the rest are very good.
a wartime German "Grand Hotel" - by the same author.
This point in time is toward the end of the war, when Germany was obviously losing.Raymond Massey plays General Arnim von Dahnwitz, who is given the chance to commit suicide after an attempt on Hitler's life fails.
He's in love with an actress, Lisa Dorn (Andrea King), who is a collaborator but, not sure where she's going to end up when the war ends, play both sides.
He realizes he's been allowed to escape to lead the Germans to the underground.Tillie (Faye Emerson), the "hotel hostess" is an informant but plays as many sides as she can to get a new pair of shoes.
It's then that she learns that Max is alive, and her attitude undergoes a change.Peter Lorre has a small role, that of a scientist who was imprisoned and then released (with no explanation for the audience) and has become an alcoholic.This film was released after the war, and it's a little more interesting than many propaganda films in that it shows the state of the German people, and separation from the beliefs of Hitler, even among officers.
It's a time of confusion for a falling Germany.The acting is good, particularly from Faye Emerson as Tillie and Raymond Massey as the doomed General.Worth seeing, not your typical propaganda film..
It was based on the play and novel 'Menschen im Hotel' by Vicki Baum, whose novels were the basis for numerous Hollywood movies, and who was a best-selling novelist in several languages.
Here we see a highly complex ensemble drama set in a hotel again, but this time the action takes place in Berlin just as the Second World War is ending and the Nazi regime is falling apart.
The film is well directed by Peter Godfrey, and contains some wonderful performances, one of the best being by Raymond Massey as a German general of the old school, who had been involved in one of the plots to kill Hitler which failed.
It's one of the few movies made during WWII that distinguishes between ordinary German citizens and Nazis.
Interesting movie about the goings-on of various characters at the Hotel Berlin near the end of WWII.
Unlike the film adaptation of Grand Hotel, this one doesn't have an all-star cast but it does have a cast of solid character actors.
Raymond Massey and Faye Emerson are standouts but really the whole cast is good.
It's a pretty good though not great WWII movie with a unique setting and some frank (for the time) talk about concentration camps and the Holocaust.
During the World War II years, you would always see many of these actors in this type of war film appearing as Nazi's, namely, Henry Daniell(Von Stetten),"The Body Snatcher",'45, starring Boris Karloff.
Even Raymond Massey (Arnim von Dahnwitz),"Arsenic & Old Lace",'44, was a Nazi who was in love with Faye Emerson,(Tillie Weiler),"Nobody Lives Forever",'46, who played a sexy blond charmer that managed to play with both sides, the Naxi's, Polish(Jews) and French.
Peter Lorre,(Johannes Koenig),"The Beast With Five Fingers",'46, played an entirely different role as a Professor, who seemed to drink most of the time, but did hate the Nazi's and their cause and managed to do his best making false ID papers and passports.
While there are bits of that in this film, the way they portray the Nazis in the final weeks of the war is a bit more multidimensional.In some ways, the film plays like a Nazified version of Grand Hotel- -with this Berlin hotel being a way to tie together the various stories in the picture.
As for the really terrible Nazis, some of the better actors who specialize in portraying evil characters are here...such as George Coulouris, Henry Danielle and Raymond Massey.
The stories are engaging and the picture manages to show a reasonably accurate picture of Germany in the final days...which is amazing since the film came out only weeks before the war ended in Europe.
Well made and its only fault is that, at times, the film seems overly long and a bit of editing would have helped the tempo.By the way, some of the anti-Nazis in the film were portrayed by folks who actually DID escape from Nazi Europe, such as Frank Reicher, Peter Lorre and Helmut Dantine..
This stale, bitter melodrama has little to recommend it except for Peter Lorre's heartfelt tour de force as a former political prisoner who is (rather implausibly) released from a concentration camp to join the underground..
But at the Time of the Production and the Films Release the Outcome was a Foregone Conclusion so there isn't Much here that is Heavy Handed or Preachy.In Fact, the Best that has been said about this Forgotten Film is it's Evenhandedness in Portraying the German People as "Not all Evil".
Nothing Really Seems that Demanding and the Whole Thing comes off as a Stage Play with Stiff B-Actors.There are a Few Highlights, like Peter Lorre as a Scientific Experimenter that is Suffering from a Guilt Complex and can't seem to Find One Good German.
The Other Character that Stands Out is the Hotel Hostess (read Prostitute) Played with some Pathos by Faye Emerson.Overall it is a Weary Movie that Reflects the Weariness of the War and by this Time Most Folks, Germans or Americans, were so Drained of Emotion by Their Losses that Another Melodramatic Story was just Tiresome.
I expected a schematic diagram of German stereotypes and their evolution in this war-time film about the good folks in a classy Berlin hotel towards the end of the war.
The Germans -- Nazi and underground alike -- are trapped in the hotel like fish in a box net.
Faye Emerson is the hotel whore who will do anything with anybody for a pair of shoes but undergoes a major change of values upon finding that her Jewish lover is still alive.
I think he was Goebbels three or four times.The most complex character is Andrea King's as Lisa Dorn ("thorn" in German), the famous actress with powerful friends and a suite in the hotel that includes a bed the size of a football field.
Efficiently Made Warner Brothers Propaganda Film May Not Raise Eyebrows Now. Initially, Germany might seem the last place for a story about the Nazi resistance, but that was the setting for "Hotel Berlin." After the success of the MGM movie "Grand Hotel," Vicki Baum sought to capture the public's interest with another bestseller Hotel Berlin '43, which was a similar tale about life in a hotel.
Earlier he had co-scripted the Errol Flynn war film "Northern Pursuit." "Hotel Berlin" was director Peter Godfrey's seventh film.
Fearing World War II would end before he could release "Hotel Berlin,"Jack Warner wanted this melodramatic opus completed as quickly as possible.
The Reporter stated, "Continuing production momentum geared to put "Hotel Berlin" in release coincidental with Russian and Allied drives on German capital, Jack Warner has alerted all departments of the studio with objective of giving the Vicki Baum story a Broadway opening within a month."Scenarists Jo Pagano and Alvah Bessie made several important changes to Baum's novel.
Second, the movie changed the background of resistance protagonist Martin Richter, a former Nazi enlisted man who runs an anti-Nazi underground movement, to that a Jewish man who has escaped from a concentration camp and works with an anti-Nazi resistance group.
During the 24-hour period, Martin Richter (Helmet Dantine of "Northern Pursuit") is a Jew who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp.
The famous German stage actress, Lisa Dorn (Andrea King of "Mr. Skeffington") tries to extricate herself from a bad situation by rescinding her Nazi beliefs and helping Richter until she discovers a way of out her problems with the Nazis by informing on Richter.
A blond hotel hostess, Tilli, (Faye Emerson of "Lady Gangster") yearns for a new pair of shoes.
General Dahnwitz (Raymond Massey of "Desperate Journey"), an arrogant Nazi who participated in a plot to kill Hitler, learns he must commit suicide or suffer a worse fate from the Gestapo.
Dahnwitz delays his suicide until Gestapo officers arrive and stand guard outside his room.The Production Code Administration warned Warner Brothers "with regard to the suicide of General Dahnwitz, it is important that it not in any way be glorified, or justified, but played practically as an execution ordered by the Gestapo." Joseph Breen reminded the filmmakers that the suicide must be an order.
Breen also wanted Warner Brothers to explain where Martin Richter spent the night in Lisa's room.
The only time that Richter spends anywhere overnight is in the shaft of the out-of-order elevator.After having read the incomplete revised Hotel Berlin script of August 29, 1944, Breen reminded Warner Brothers about General Dahnwitz's suicide and the problems it could pose which Breen had addressed before.
Breen also warned the filmmakers about characterizing Tilli as a hotel prostitute."Hotel Berlin" bristles with intrigue, but this wartime film is totally forgettable today.
War movie buffs will appreciate this more than the typical viewer unless "Hotel Berlin" is a late night treat for an insomniac..
***SPOILERS*** The movie "Hotel Berlin" was Made in early 1945 and released on March 2nd of that year exactly two months before Berlin fell to the Red Army on May 2, 1945.
Inside the Hotel Berlin are a number of anti-Nazi German resistance fighters led by Martin Richter, Helmut Dantine, who just escaped from a German concentration camp.
Richter is now planing to start a revolt against Hitler's Germany in order to help put an end to the war before the vengeful and murderous Red Army captures the city.
Richter is given cover from being captured by the Gestapo headed by the hotel's security chief Gestapo Commissioner Joachim Helm, George Coulouris, by top German actress Lisa Dorn, Andrea King.
There's also General Von Dahnwitz, Raymond Massy, who was called back to Berlin from the front and is also Lisa's lover.
Other stories at the hotel is about the hotel hostess Tillie Weller, Fay Emerson, and Nazi big shot Herman Plottke, Alan Hale.
Tillie is shocked to find that her lover Max is alive since thinking that he was dead she became an informer for the Nazi's at the hotel besides being the hotel hostess.The movie ends with both Gestapo Commissioner Helm and pro-Nazi and double-crossing Lisa Dorn getting their just deserts from none other the the person who they tried to do in heroic German freedom fighter Martin Richter.
The Film "Hotel Berlin" ends with Richter and his band of resistance fighters in the hotel including a number of downed US Army Air Force bomber pilots, where did they come from?, escaping to freedom.
"Hotel Berlin" is a well acted and directed film that doesn't hit you so hard over the head with the propaganda that your use to seeing in most Hollywood WWII movies.
This may be because when it was made the war against Germany was just about over and there was no reason to go overboard with the anti-German propaganda in it.
Among other pluses in the movie "Hotel Berlin" is that there were also a few good Germans in it..
As the war against Nazi Germany is coming to a climax, this 1945 film revolves around several characters at a hotel in Berlin.Despite brief appearances, Peter Lorre and Alan Hale do some very fine dramatic acting, properly the best in their long careers.Andrea King is wonderful as the German actress staying at the hotel.
When a concentration camp survivor escapes to the hotel, he meets up with her and is warned that she has strong Nazi sympathies.
Raymond Massey is such a German; although a General in the Germany army, he participated in the assassination plot and when caught, you know what he is told to do.
100 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Resistance leader, cornered in a Berlin Hotel, enlists the aid of an actress to help him escape.NOTES: Vicki Baum's Grand Hold (1930) was such a runaway bestseller, she spent the rest of her life (she died in 1960) trying to recapture the extent of that achievement.
This then is a Grand Hotel in a last-days-of-Berlin setting.
Alternative film title: BERLIN HOTEL.COMMENT: Concocted by Vicki Baum of Grand Hotel, this is a delightfully flamboyant melodrama, engrossingly acted by a second-string but first-rate cast, stylishly directed by Peter Godfrey who makes the most of Carl Guthrie's fluidly fascinating camerawork and John Hughes' broodingly magnificent sets.
Every role is perfectly cast - from the major leads (Dantine as the fugitive, Andrea King as the actress sympathizer, Raymond Massey as the general-in-a-trap, Faye Emerson as the hotel "hostess") to the minor supports (Alan Hale as a vengeful Nazi, Dickie Tyler as a harried bellboy), with splendid back-up from deft players like Steve Geray and Frank Reicher.Godfrey keeps the various story strands cracking along at a merry pace.
I guess people were eager to see a timely dramatization, such as it was, of the defeat of Germany played as an ersatz Grand Hotel.
Alan Hale, as a Nazi official, is disposed of, as a suspect in an SS officer's killing -- completely out of the blue (he's innocent and not connected in any way) -- because, well, his character needs disposing of.
Andrea King's Lisa Dorn gives up Dantine to the SS, for coffee, but it's Emerson who gets shot.
(Well, this is a Faye Emerson vehicle.) There's also a lame reprise of Lewis Stone's "doctor waiting for a message" in Grand Hotel.Raymond Massey has a great part, as a doomed general, and the other actors do their stuff well, but none are allowed to develop their characters.