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Hotel (1967) Mirrors a Vanished Studio Era

Hotel is a lament for old-style hospitality gone the way of corporate takeover, a grand institution brought to knees by progress none but profiteers want. This then, intended or not, was a Hollywood story, Warners itself about to become (in 1969) "A Kinney Company," their logo redone in ugly homage to new bosses. How faceless was Kinney? Enough so to know them, if at all, for parking lots, wood flooring, and quiet ownership of National Periodicals (DC comics). Kinney to show biz was canker upon day when picture companies became raw meat for congloms smelling blood that was annual loss, trouble known across Hollywood board. Maybe that's how Warners came to Hotel with more conviction than customary for in-house product where break-even point was generally a TV sale. Were the title-referenced "St. Gregory" Burbank rather than New Orleans located, this might be story of a proud studio rather than hotel being imperiled, with the WB shield peeled off its signature water tower for a wistful finish.

Hotel was "Grand" in relic sense of multi-characters stood against a going-were-days main lobby set that cost Warners $325K and took up 22,000 square feet of stage space. Extravagance was something with which movies could still impress some people that didn't know real score. The cast was second-drawer starry, an ensemble, and no one dominant: Rod Taylor, Karl Malden, Richard Conte, feature-billed Merle Oberon said to wear $500K's worth of personal jewelry, including "a brooch that once belonged to Marie Antoinette." She'd years later confess to resentment over her part being whittled so as to feature more of import ingenue Catherine Spaak. Hotel was story-told to fragment left of grown-up patronage whose kids lined up instead for Bonnie and Clyde, also from Warners and better indicator of how tastes would hereafter run. Source novel was by Arthur Hailey, writing they could really have used back when movies were movies, his the fuse that later lit Airport, that other glorious last stand for establishment H'wood.

Hotel was stop for old-timers and old souls. Aforementioned Merle Oberon is among tenants, and Melvyn Douglas is upstairs owner. Rod Taylor seems a throwback to lead men the industry had diminishing use for. We could ask why he didn't become a bigger star, even as Hotel answers. Taylor is authoritative, ruggedly male, even jaunty at times (his lobby footwork almost a dance), but Hotel was dawn upon day for the Dustin Hoffmans, or merciful heavens, a Michael J. Pollard, who'd actually get leads in wake of Bonnie and Clyde. Were these the personalities the late 60's deserved? By then, men's men seemed destined for TV, or inactivity. In fact, Taylor would head largely for the tube, as would also promising Brian Keith, another I equate with Taylor in terms of stardom misplaced. You know the St. Gregory has been around years for elevator sound Warners had used since arrival of talkies --- next to their ringing phone, it's a most recognizable of aural effects in Hotel.

Kevin McCarthy checks in as shark pursuing takeover. He'd later check-in locally (1989), doing his Harry Truman show at our Community College. I drove him to and from the airport in Greensboro. He talked of Hotel and other things. Most memorable incident, said KMc, was Merle Oberon inviting the cast south-of-border for recreation at her luxurious digs. Kevin and colleagues swam with Oberon, in her late 50's at the time, him enthusing twenty plus years later that she "had the body of a teenage girl." Proof then, that actors could be impressed by one another in the right circumstance. Hotel had a World Press Premiere in Miami Beach with stars, comped rooms, go-go dancers, the works. It would play limping downtown palaces like the Chicago Theatre, as in ad at top, even as such barns came down sick from urban blight in mid-to-late 60's. The North-South Carolina ABC theatre circuit used Hotel for a project picture after Airport struck big in 1970, touting Arthur Hailey as author of both. Television got Hotel in 1973 (NBC runs). There's a CD soundtrack of the excellent Johnny Keating score (jazzy), and Warner Archive has a DVD. Hotel has also played Warner Instant in HD, and we might expect TCM to run it thus in wake of the network going to true High-Def as opposed to mere upscale from standard-def.