Week-End at the Waldorf *** (1945, Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Robert Benchley, Edward Arnold) – Classic Movie Review 6717

MGM’s expensive, sprightly 1945 Week-End at the Waldorf remakes Grand Hotel, relocated to wartime New York City, and the Waldorf-Astoria, with amiable performances from Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon and Van Johnson.

Director Robert Z Leonard’s expensive, sprightly 1945 MGM remake of its Thirties all-star mega-hit Grand Hotel (1932) is relocated to wartime New York City, and the Waldorf-Astoria, with amiable performances from an attractive ensemble cast, an opulent production, a lot of story, silliness and sentimentality, as well as music from Xavier Cugat.

In updated roles, Ginger Rogers plays the lonely Greta Garbo-style film star Irene Malvern, Lana Turner the Joan Crawford-style stenographer Bunny Smith, Walter Pidgeon the war correspondent Chip Collyer (the John Barrymore part) and Van Johnson a wounded soldier, Captain James Hollis (the Lionel Barrymore part). They are all most entertaining, but, even so, typically the most fun comes from the supporting ranks, led by Robert Benchley as Randy Morton, Keenan Wynn as Oliver Webson. and Edward Arnold in the old Wallace Beery role as Martin X Edley.

It may not quite have the special charm and allure of the original but it still does have its own charm and allure, and it is still very entertaining indeed. Sam Spewack, Bella Spewack and Guy Bolton adapt the original source play Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum in a screenplay ‘suggested by the play’.

Also in the cast are Constance Collier, Phyllis Thaxter. Leon Ames, Warner Anderson, Porter Hall, Samuel S Hinds, George Zucco, Xavier Cougat, Lina Romay, Bob Graham, Michael Kirby, Cora Sue Collins, Rosemary DeCamp, Jacqueline DeWitt, Frank Puglia, Charles Wilson, Irving Bacon, Miles Mander, Nana Bryant, Russell Hicks, Moroni Olsen, William Halligan, and William Hall.

Week-End at the Waldorf is directed by Robert Z Leonard, runs 130 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Sam Spewack, Bella Spewack (screenplay) and Guy Bolton (adaptation), is shot in black and white by Robert Planck, is produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr, and is scored by Johnny Green), with Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons.

Week-End at the Waldorf was a big hit as the sixth highest grossing film of 1945, bringing MGM a profit of $1,474,000.

Some interior and exterior scenes were shot at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, but most of the movie was shot at the MGM studios, where the lobby, Starlight Roof Garden and 60 other sets were built, and later re-used for Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945). According to a plaque at the Waldorf-Astoria, it is ‘the first on location movie filmed outside the Hollywood studios sets’. It plays continuously on a monitor near the registration desk at the Waldorf-Astoria. The hotel owners tried but failed to get MGM to shoot the film in colour.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6717

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