An Exacting Task

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6838, 20 April 1932, Page 5

An Exacting Task

SELECTING SUPPOBTING CAST 808 ‘‘GBAND HOTEL.” One of tho most exacting tasks ever facing a casting officer is tho assignment of 70 individual lesser roles for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's picturisation of Vicki Baum’s “Grand Hotel.”

Every part, no matter how brief in appearance before the camera, is regarded as being of great importance by Director Edmund Goulding, who is exercising as much care in the selection of players to fill,the 70 characterisations as if they were of leading prominence.

These players, usually assigned to “bit” players, includo doormen, waiters, bar-tenders, pages, hotel clerks, elevator men, tclephono girls, maids, telegraph messengers, policemen, merchants, salesmen, and other characters who, for perhaps only a moment, become important in the human drama enacted within the walls of the hotel. Greta Garbo heads the all-star cast in the film version of the Vicki Baum story, and other principal roles arc played by Wallace Becrv, Joan Crawford, John and Lionel Barrymore, Lowis Stone and Jean Hcrsholt.