Some months back I did a post on the movie Hotel Berlin, which is based on a story by Vicki Baum but is not the remake of Grand Hotel. As I mentioned at the time, the remake is Week-End at the Waldorf, and with that having been on my DVR, I eventually watched it in order to be able to do a review of it here.
It's mildly unfair to refer to Week-End at the Waldorf as a remake of Grand Hotel, since it's not so much a remake as a reworking, with the story lines all getting substantial reworkings. The setting is moved from Weimar Berlin to New York's Waldorf-Astoria in the latter days of World War II as well. Walter Pidgeon is the nominal male lead here, and his character doesn't really exist in Grand Hotel. Pidgeon plays Chip Collyer, a war correspondent who's returned stateside for some rest and wants exactly that. His editor, however, wants Chip to get the goods on shady businessman Edley (Edward Arnold), who is trying to secure the oil rights from the Bey of Stock Arab Country (George Zucco), possibly by trying to involve non-shady businessman Jessup (Samuel S. Hinds) who has an apartment at the Waldorf. Except that Jessup doesn't use the apartment on a full-time basis, so he's decided to let a war hero and his newlywed wife use it since with the war on hotels are fully booked up with people moving in and out of the city.
Another connection to World War II is wounded soldier Capt. James Hollis (Van Johnson) who wants to go back to his old home town and start a business there. He's also written a song which, though a mix-up, winds up in the hands of Xavier Cugat. James meets the hotel stenographer Bunny (Lana Turner, since Joan Crawford was now much too old for the role and besides had already decamped to Warner Bros.) and the two fall in love, although Bunny wants financial security and thinks she sees that in Edley who keeps calling her up to his suite on actual work matters. He's also got the financial security -- or so she thinks -- to get her to do his bidding.
One of the main story lines from Grand Hotel is that of the world-weary actress, played in the original by Greta Garbo which is why the role is so big. Here, that actress is played by Ginger Rogers, a woman named Irene Malvern who is in town for the opening of her new film before heading back to Hollywood. Chip shows up in her suite thanks to a botched attempt to get the story on Edley. Instead, Irene thinks Chip might be the jewel-thief who is rumored to be in the hotel and rumored to want Irene's jewels. Chip uses this as an excuse to get involved romantically with Irene, as she has to use him to help out somebody else as well as explain how he wound up in her room.
There's more to the cast of characters, notably a young Keenan Wynn as the reporter Chip's editor sends in Chip's place to get the story on Edley when Chip claims to need that rest, along with story lines coming together and drifting apart until the final reel when the good guys get the requisite happy ending and the bad guys get their comeuppance.
Week-End at the Waldorf runs 15-20 minutes longer than Grand Hotel, and frankly, it shows in the final product. It consistenly feels long, in the sense that nobody was able to find the spark that made Grand Hotel one of the classic all-star movies of the early 1930s. Walter Pidgeon is, I think, not quite right as that war correspondent, while Ginger Rogers doesn't really give off the sense of wanting to be left alone.
Having finally watched Week-End at the Waldorf, I think it's with good reason that it's not as well-remembered as Grand Hotel.
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