A corrupt businessman. A ballerina bereft of passion. A common burglar posing as a baron. A pragmatic doctor. A dying man determined to live out his days in luxury. A porter worried about his wife. And a stenographer caught up in the mix. Combine these characters into a bowl, add a dash of star power, stir well, and you have "Grand Hotel", Oscar's 1932 winner for Best Picture.<br /><br />It has been said that the best baseball games are based on good pitching. Along those same lines, the best movies are based on good writing. Never mind that Grand Hotel came from MGM, the most powerful studio of its day. Never mind that the cast included not one, not two, but seven of the most legendary names in Hollywood history. Never mind that it was the second of the three Best Picture winners produced by Irving G. Thalberg in a six-year span, "The Broadway Melody" (1929) and "Mutiny On the Bounty" (1935) being the other two. At its core, "Grand Hotel" has one of the most intricately-written scripts ever created, filled with characters as diverse and as multi-dimensional as any found in film.<br /><br />Though nominated only for Best Picture (a very unique anomaly in Academy history), "Grand Hotel" offers not only a wonderful script, but fascinating performances from Wallace Beery (who did tie for Best Actor that year for "The Champ"), Greta Garbo, and an almost unrecognizable Joan Crawford, in her breakout performance. This film also has a pair of Barrymores, with Lionel as the ailing Mr. Kringelein, looking to spend his final days in the lap of luxury, and John as the dashing Baron von Geigern, a hotel thief with a soft touch.<br /><br />"Grand Hotel" is a character-driven movie, filled with deception, intrigue, scandal, and corruption, with a murder thrown in for good measure. Of all the characters in the film, only Mr. Kringelein, who has a run of good fortune, Flaemmchen, who only wants a good opportunity, and the hotel porter Senf (Jean Hersholt), who frets throughout the film about his wife's labor, come away better at the end than in the beginning.<br /><br />I think the reason "Grand Hotel" was not nominated for a screenplay Oscar was simply that nobody was credited with adapting the script for the movie. It is quite possible that the script was already solid enough, so that only minimal adaptation was necessary. Otherwise, it holds its own on the screen quite well.<br /><br />I will not be deceptive here. "Grand Hotel" is a dated movie. But, on the other hand, I think it holds its own as a study of seven characters and as a successful experiment in early ensemble casting.