Hotel Berlin (1945)

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Most of the wartime pictures made in the US portray the Nazis as complete sadists...almost demonic. While there are bits of that in this film, the way they portray the Nazis in the final weeks of the war is a bit more multidimensional.In some ways, the film plays like a Nazified version of Grand Hotel- -with this Berlin hotel being a way to tie together the various stories in the picture. There are evil Nazis, not quite so evil Nazis, Germans not in the military that hate the Nazis and Germans who are just hoping to survive. As for the really terrible Nazis, some of the better actors who specialize in portraying evil characters are here...such as George Coulouris, Henry Danielle and Raymond Massey. The stories are engaging and the picture manages to show a reasonably accurate picture of Germany in the final days...which is amazing since the film came out only weeks before the war ended in Europe. Well made and its only fault is that, at times, the film seems overly long and a bit of editing would have helped the tempo.By the way, some of the anti-Nazis in the film were portrayed by folks who actually DID escape from Nazi Europe, such as Frank Reicher, Peter Lorre and Helmut Dantine.

Not Without some Interest, this Ultimately Unsatisfying bit of Studio Filmmaking Echoes WWII Propaganda. But at the Time of the Production and the Films Release the Outcome was a Foregone Conclusion so there isn't Much here that is Heavy Handed or Preachy.In Fact, the Best that has been said about this Forgotten Film is it's Evenhandedness in Portraying the German People as "Not all Evil". The Movie is Mostly a Yawner but it is Kept Awake by the Multitude of Characters and the Movement of the Plot and its Myriad of Interwoven Interactions.Each One is given a Speech or Two and the Plot Weaves in and out of Patriotic Duty, Blind Obedience, Desperate Survival Tactics, Among the Stock Characters. Nothing Really Seems that Demanding and the Whole Thing comes off as a Stage Play with Stiff B-Actors.There are a Few Highlights, like Peter Lorre as a Scientific Experimenter that is Suffering from a Guilt Complex and can't seem to Find One Good German. The Other Character that Stands Out is the Hotel Hostess (read Prostitute) Played with some Pathos by Faye Emerson.Overall it is a Weary Movie that Reflects the Weariness of the War and by this Time Most Folks, Germans or Americans, were so Drained of Emotion by Their Losses that Another Melodramatic Story was just Tiresome. That is Good Description of the Film...Tiresome.

***SPOILERS*** The movie "Hotel Berlin" was Made in early 1945 and released on March 2nd of that year exactly two months before Berlin fell to the Red Army on May 2, 1945. The film is about the fearful and chaotic times in that great German capital in early 1945 when it was under attack from the air by the USAAF and RAF and at the same time as the Red Army was closing in on it from the east. It was then that the Soviet Union assembled it's divisions for it's massive 1,000,000 man armored and infantry assault that it launched on April 16, 1945 to put the final nail on the coffin of Nazi Germany. Inside the Hotel Berlin are a number of anti-Nazi German resistance fighters led by Martin Richter, Helmut Dantine, who just escaped from a German concentration camp. Richter is now planing to start a revolt against Hitler's Germany in order to help put an end to the war before the vengeful and murderous Red Army captures the city. Richter is also being helped by the former German newspaper publisher Walter Baumier, Wolfgang Zilzer, and his young son, Richard Tyler, who's a bellhop at the hotel. There's also Richter's science professor who taught him at the University of Leipzig Prof. Johannes Koenig, Peter Lorre, who until the final few minutes seemed to be dead drunk during the entire film. Richter is given cover from being captured by the Gestapo headed by the hotel's security chief Gestapo Commissioner Joachim Helm, George Coulouris, by top German actress Lisa Dorn, Andrea King. Lisa is really a loyal Nazi and is i fact setting him up to be captured by the Gestapo. There's also General Von Dahnwitz, Raymond Massy, who was called back to Berlin from the front and is also Lisa's lover. Gen. Von Dahnwitz doesn't know that he's to be arrested for trying to overthrow the Hitler regime after he was ratted out by one of his officers who he trusted. Other stories at the hotel is about the hotel hostess Tillie Weller, Fay Emerson, and Nazi big shot Herman Plottke, Alan Hale. Plottke is trying to skip out of the country with all the money he looted from the German treasury that amounted to four million Marks. There's also Nazi big wig Von Stetten, Henry Daniell, who's also trying to get out of Germany via a U-Boat. Stetten is planing to start up a new Nazi movement after the fall of the Third Reich in North America! And last but not least there's Sara Baruch the mother of Tillie's Jewish boyfriend Max who was arrested and sent to a concentration camp but unknown to Tillie Max was just liberated by the US army. Mrs Baruch wants Tillie to get her medication for her sick and dying husband to relive the pain that he's suffering from terminal cancer. Tillie is shocked to find that her lover Max is alive since thinking that he was dead she became an informer for the Nazi's at the hotel besides being the hotel hostess.The movie ends with both Gestapo Commissioner Helm and pro-Nazi and double-crossing Lisa Dorn getting their just deserts from none other the the person who they tried to do in heroic German freedom fighter Martin Richter. General Von Dahnwitz end up killing himself, with a bullet to the head to avoid being tortured and murdered by the Gestapo. Van Stetten's U-Boat is captured by the allies and with that his ticket to freedom and dreams of starting up a new Nazi Germany going down the drain together with him. Prof.Koenig finally stops drinking and sobers up enough to join the anti-Nazi resistance movement. The greedy and arrogant Herman Plottke gets arrested by the Gestapo for Commissioners Helm's murder which he was innocent of! Still he got what he deserved for the other rotten things that he did in the movie. The Film "Hotel Berlin" ends with Richter and his band of resistance fighters in the hotel including a number of downed US Army Air Force bomber pilots, where did they come from?, escaping to freedom. "Hotel Berlin" is a well acted and directed film that doesn't hit you so hard over the head with the propaganda that your use to seeing in most Hollywood WWII movies. This may be because when it was made the war against Germany was just about over and there was no reason to go overboard with the anti-German propaganda in it. Among other pluses in the movie "Hotel Berlin" is that there were also a few good Germans in it.

Great movie! Andrea King and Faye Emerson fabulous and talented. Very entertaining and historic.