Ten Thousand Bedrooms ** (1957, Dean Martin, Eva Bartok, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Walter Slezak, Paul Henreid, Dewey Martin, Jules Munshin, Marcel Dalio, Evelyn Varden) – Classic Movie Review 6909

After their bust-up, Dean Martin stars for the first time without his long-term screen partner Jerry Lewis, in director Richard Thorpe’s meek and mild MGM 1957 musical comedy set in a Rome hotel. It is a big-budget production, shot in Metrocolor and CinemaScope.

Martin plays millionaire hotel mogul Ray Hunter who finds himself romancing two of Italian Papa Vittorio Martelli (Walter Slezak)’s daughters – Maria and Nina (Eva Bartok and Anna Maria Alberghetti) – in between trilling forgettable tunes by Nicholas Brodszky.

When Ray flies to Rome to buy another hotel, the Regent, he is met at the airport by lovely Maria Martelli (Eva Bartok), who works for the hotel’s owner, Countess Alzani (Evelyn Varden). Despite Maria’s evident loveliness, he soon he becomes smitten with Maria’s youngest sister, 18-year-old Nina (Anna Maria Alberghetti), who takes a fast liking to Ray. But, to marry Nina, Ray would have to get her three older sisters married off when Papa Martelli saying all of the eldest daughters must be married before the youngest can wed.

It is a pity that the great title doesn’t deliver its promised magic. Certainly, Martin is charming and amusing, and so are character actors like Slezak, Paul Henreid, Dewey Martin, Jules Munshin, Marcel Dalio and Evelyn Varden, while Bartok and Alberghetti are attractive and appealing. But it is not quite enough to bail out the rather tepid screenplay. However, there are enough romantic entanglements and plot complications to keep it interesting, and the movie does have its moments.

Lisa Montell and Lisa Gaye play the other sisters, Diana and Ana Martelli, and sing Rock Around the Clock. Also in the cast are John Archer, Stephen Dunne, Dean Jones, Monique van Vooren, Bess Flowers, Nestor Paiva and Benny Rubin.

Ten Thousand Bedrooms is directed by Richard Thorpe, runs 114 minutes, is made by MGM, is written by Leonard Spigelglass, Art Cohn, William Ludwig and László Vadnay, shot in Metrocolor and CinemaScope by Robert J Bronner, produced by Joe Pasternak, and scored by Nicholas Brodszky, George E Stoll and Robert Van Eps, with designs by William A Horning and Randall Duell.

It was filmed in Rome in spring 1956 and in autumn 1956 in Culver City.

It was not a hit. On a budget of $1.8 million, it earned $1.7 million, resulting in a loss for MGM of $1,196,000.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6909

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