"GRAND HOTEL."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 6

"GRAND HOTEL."

SUCCESS AT ST. JAMES'. Hundreds of people were unable to gain admission to St. James' Theatre yaitcrday, where "Grand Hotel" received its premiere. All first-night records for the tEeatre from the time of "The Gold Diggers of Broadway" were broken. Hie house was packed at all of the three sessions. The theme of the picture is really a presentation of life iu many phases, rather than the story of Kringelein, and so magnificently were these phases presented that au audience simply had to forget actors, actresses and screen, to live with those intensely human per* songes so wonderfully portrayed. Auckland has never before seen such a masterly succession of character studies as passes through the revolving doors of "Grand Hotel." It has set a standard in casting, that gives faithfulness down to the minutest detail. The mill clerk's desire for a few days of "living," as he pictures it, before death closes a life that has been naught but toil, brings him into touch with all sorts and conditions of men and women. Despite the array of talent impersonating these, and the excellence ot their acting, the film, remains an outstanding triumph for Lionel Barrymore---Kringelein, with his fierce last clutch life. The pathetic figure lives, laughs and loves with such natural intensity 111 surroundings so unnatural to him that the hearts of the whole audience go out to him from his impatient entrance to the booking ofiicc till his humorously pathetic departure. In Lionel Barrymore s hands Kringelein really exists, lie is not poitrayed. The same may be said of those with whom he comes in contact. brother, as Baron von Gaigern. mail oj gentle birth, forced by war conditions ana pre-war upbringing to beconie_ a preyei upon society is scarcely less impressne. Wallace Beery makes Prevsing, scheming mill owner and strict family man till j ic falls under the alluring charm of the typist, a fine portrait of the German man of industrial power. With Lewis stone as the war wreck mcdico, addicted to drugs, and Jean Hersholt as the porter, it is not hard to imagine wlm power there lies in the male cast, lhe Grusinskaya of Greta Garbo differs somewhat from the character that the book itself paints in the imagination, but loses nothing from that differing. Here one sees the temperamental pet of the ioollights, waning in power as she ages, flashing back to pent-up youthful desires as she discovers mutual love with the baron, and, passing from the scecn. apprehensive, yet unaware of the tragedy that wilt wreck licr hopes. Then there is Joan Crawford, as the typist and occasional model who knows the financial value ot her own charms, and yet has those true womanly emotions that make her recognise and respond to what is noble in ™ en ; "Grand Hotel'' is entertainment redolent with the atmosphere of actual life and filled with scenes of love and laughter, pathos and adventure.