"People come. People go. Nothing ever happens." So says Otternschlag (Lewis Stone), a disfigured doctor and permanent resident of the eponymous Grand Hotel. What happens between the first and last time we hear him say these words at the beginning and end of the movie, however, goes a long way towards proving him wrong.

Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) is an unhappy ballerina touring Europe and looking for love during the ebb of her career. Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore) is a titled, upper class man with debts who steals while being a friend to all. Preysing (Wallace Beery) is a businessman trying to secure a merger to save his company. Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford) is the pretty stenographer Preysing hires to assist him. Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) is one of Preysing's employees living through the last days of a terminal illness in the opulence of the hotel. Otternschlag is the quiet observer and Senf (Jean Hersholt) is the concierge waiting for his wife to give birth.

From the title sequence onward individual plot points become less important than the situational dynamic of seeing these people meet one another and form various alliances or animosities. A day in the hotel passes, various guests leave and arrive, meals are served, lessons are learned, people fall in love and lives are changed.

With the film's end Grusinskaya leaves believing the Baron will accompany her through Europe since the two have fallen in love. Unknown to her Preysing has killed the Baron who was caught steeling his pocketbook. Flaemmchen discovered the murder with Kringelein who then contacted the proper authorities. As Preysing is taken to jail, Flaemmchen and Kringelein mourn the Baron's death and leave the hotel together to spend Kringelein's final days traveling. Otternschlag continues on as he always has and Senf's wife gives birth to a healthy baby.

Not an altogether unpleasant set of affairs though Grand Hotel is far from being an extraordinary film. Still, there's nothing wrong with the picture although it does lack something even if the sum of its parts are excellent. The cast is top notch, save for the dated style of Garbo and Lionel Barrymore's performances. The production design is magnificent. The script is first rate and the set of complications resolved by film's end is a study in narrative organization.

Giving context to my marginal recommendation, there were eight films nominated for the Outstanding Production award of 1931-1932. Besides Grand Hotel, which was only nominated for the top award, the other seven competitors were Arrowsmith, Bad Girl, The Champ, Five Star Final, One Hour with You, Shanghai Express and Smiling Lieutenant. Since I've only heard of Arrowsmith, The Champ and Shanghai Express, let alone actually seen any of them, I'm left with a perhaps false impression about how unremarkable the year's Outstanding Production nominees may have been.

In making this assessment I'm suggesting there are various standards and criteria we might apply to assess a movie's excellence. Usually they include such considerations as technical brilliance, commercial and critical success and a bevy of singularities largely based on the effectiveness of leading cast and crew on the overall production.

I'm also sure that among these standards and criteria we might agree that a movie isn't effective, entertaining and accomplished solely on the basis of its possibly winning any of a number of awards. We might also agree that a movie's reputation, in part, rests on the way it continues to be seen in new contexts and by new audiences. That is, we value movies able to live well beyond their original release dates and that invite us to enjoy them year after year and screening after screening.

While I enjoyed Grand Hotel and believe it's representative of MGM's studio style at the apex of its creative strength, my overall impression is that the film is slight and forgettable despite its then state-of-the-art filmmaking craftsmanship. Throughout there is nothing of particular substance to sink your teeth into and were it not for the richness of its production, its stable of early '30s Hollywood movie stars and the famous source in the Vicki Baum's play, there would be little to recommend it save for its having won the 5th Academy Award for Outstanding Production. In short every element of the movie is polished, primed, picture perfect and impressive but the movie itself means very little.

I think the problem is in Baum's play as adapted by William A. Drake and modified by Béla Balázs. Each of the picture's characters suffer from the kind of tension that makes their story ark a focal point for colliding interests and escalating conflicts with everyone else. The thing is, none of the tensions, collisions and conflicts really matters when the whole rollick through a high-end German hotel is nothing but an excuse to see perfectly dressed sets and six or seven of the biggest stars of 1932.

To remake Grand Hotel today, as it has been remade several times over, a comparable effort might star Julia Roberts as Grusinskaya, Tom Hanks as Baron, Leelee Sobieski as Flaemmchen, Danny Aiello as Preysing, William Hurt as Kringelein, Anthony Hopkins as Otternschlag and Steve Buscemi as Senf. Lasse Holstrom might write and direct the whole affair and it would be budgeted well over a $100 million. Needless to say, it would concern a group of good looking and talented white people speaking well of one another and enjoying the lavish possibilities of the most fantastic hotel ever imagined.

I suspect Grand Hotel, 21st Century would be empty of any transcendent values save the combination of its creative personnel and impressive design elements. In this way it might appeal to a certain segment of the mass audience and to a certain friendly cadre of critics and reviewers who would ignore its lack of purpose to enjoy the spectacle. Thus, a remade Grand Hotel would be very much like the original film of 1932.

In retrospect, then, there are three other films from the period that seem far more influential and important than any of the eight films recognized by the Academy as Outstanding Production nominees. The first is Howard Hawks's Scarface from United Artists. The second is James Whale's Frankenstein from Universal and the third is Tod Browning's Freaks, coincidentally also from MGM. Though each of these titles is typically minimized for being a genre film, each is an outstanding entertainment and uniquely remembered despite the American film establishment's focus on Grand Hotel.

Don't get me wrong as I write-off the year's Oscar winner. I like looking at Garbo, Crawford and John Barrymore and I was impressed with Beery's overwhelming physical size just like everyone else who watches Edmund Goulding's movie. There is considerable value in having captured all these actors at relatively early stages in their career and in the transition from silent to sound films.

However, when given a bang for my buck I'd much rather see Paul Muni's tortured gangster, Boris Karloff's sympathetic monster or any of the highly disturbing freaks peopling Browning's carnival from hell. These characters were not created for an upscale audience and their status as apotheosis to Grand Hotel lies in their representation of post-Great Depression American life with its concerns about day-to-day survival, man's inhumanity to man and the trouble of individuality when faced with massive socializing institutions.

Without doubt I prefer such complexities and potential unpleasantness as is readily available in Scarface, Frankenstein and Freaks. That not everyone agreed with me is why Grand Hotel was picture of the year just as my trio of noteworthy titles was ignored except for the last laugh of history that makes Frankenstein's monster far more well known than either Grusinskaya, the Baron, Flaemmchen, Preysing, Kringelein, Otternschlag or Senf.