Hotel Continental

Yes, reviewers who think backwards compare this film to "Grand Hotel," but it came out six months earlier and chronological order trumps coincidental similarity in my mind, so i prefer to say that "Grand Hotel" is a big, fat, blown-up version of "Hotel Continental."

I loved everything about this movie, aside from the low quality of the print i viewed for free on YouTube.

The opening scene was Hitchcockian in its long, roaming scan of the hotel lobby -- an amazing piece of work. Peggy Shannon was lovely and expressive, while Theodore von Eltz was handsome, brooding, and darkly Byronic -- and they made a great star-crossed couple, both with shady pasts and trust issues, like an antique version of a Coen Brothers story. Additionally, Henry B. Walthall was superb in an unexpected role that had me guessing.

The music was another plus. It was all over the map, stitched together from a dozen sources, including stock cues, "Street Scene," "The Dance of the Hours," "Nola" (Vincent Lopez's radio show theme), "Auld Lang Syne," and "Mama Inez" (a hit for Maurice Chevalier the year before). A real, live female pianist played some of it, uncredited, during the party scene.

And speaking of "uncredited," kudos to Wedgwood Nowell, wrongly credited at IMDb as a "party guest" who actually played the role of a radio announcer, with a real feeling of pathos in his voice, as he broadcast his last remote from the Grill Room of the Hotel Continental.

What a wonderful, unsung gem. I hope other viewers enjoy it as much as i did!