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i must have seen a different film!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Like "Grand Hotel," "Hotel Berlin" shows the lives of various guests and workers at a hotel at a specific point in time. This point in time is toward the end of the war, when Germany was obviously losing.Raymond Massey plays General Arnim von Dahnwitz, who is given the chance to commit suicide after an attempt on Hitler's life fails. He's in love with an actress, Lisa Dorn (Andrea King), who is a collaborator but, not sure where she's going to end up when the war ends, play both sides. In fact, an escaped prisoner (Helmut Dantine) hides in her room. He realizes he's been allowed to escape to lead the Germans to the underground.Tillie (Faye Emerson), the "hotel hostess" is an informant but plays as many sides as she can to get a new pair of shoes. She was in love with a Jewish man, Max, presumed dead, and his mother comes to her for help getting some pain medicine for her failing husband. It's then that she learns that Max is alive, and her attitude undergoes a change.Peter Lorre has a small role, that of a scientist who was imprisoned and then released (with no explanation for the audience) and has become an alcoholic.This film was released after the war, and it's a little more interesting than many propaganda films in that it shows the state of the German people, and separation from the beliefs of Hitler, even among officers. It's a time of confusion for a falling Germany.The acting is good, particularly from Faye Emerson as Tillie and Raymond Massey as the doomed General.Worth seeing, not your typical propaganda film.

Initially, Germany might seem the last place for a story about the Nazi resistance, but that was the setting for "Hotel Berlin." After the success of the MGM movie "Grand Hotel," Vicki Baum sought to capture the public's interest with another bestseller Hotel Berlin '43, which was a similar tale about life in a hotel. This time the hotel teemed with intrigue in the bomb-shattered German capital. Warner Brother bought Baum's novel and assigned Jo Pagano and Alvah Bessie. Earlier he had co-scripted the Errol Flynn war film "Northern Pursuit." "Hotel Berlin" was director Peter Godfrey's seventh film. He shot it between November 15, 1944, and January 15, 1945. Fearing World War II would end before he could release "Hotel Berlin,"Jack Warner wanted this melodramatic opus completed as quickly as possible. "The Hollywood Reporter" of January 1, 1945, published an article about the frenzy of activity. The Reporter stated, "Continuing production momentum geared to put "Hotel Berlin" in release coincidental with Russian and Allied drives on German capital, Jack Warner has alerted all departments of the studio with objective of giving the Vicki Baum story a Broadway opening within a month."Scenarists Jo Pagano and Alvah Bessie made several important changes to Baum's novel. First, the bestseller contained an English character under house arrest who broadcasts propaganda to Great Britain. In addition, he needs medical attention requiring the use of morphine. Warner Brothers eliminated this character. Second, the movie changed the background of resistance protagonist Martin Richter, a former Nazi enlisted man who runs an anti-Nazi underground movement, to that a Jewish man who has escaped from a concentration camp and works with an anti-Nazi resistance group. They also shortened the span of the action from several days to a 24-hour period in the elite Hotel Berlin. During the 24-hour period, Martin Richter (Helmet Dantine of "Northern Pursuit") is a Jew who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Richter hides in the hotel elevator shaft, later obtains a waiter's uniform, and circulates throughout the hotel. The famous German stage actress, Lisa Dorn (Andrea King of "Mr. Skeffington") tries to extricate herself from a bad situation by rescinding her Nazi beliefs and helping Richter until she discovers a way of out her problems with the Nazis by informing on Richter. A hotel waiter who is a member of the underground informs his compatriots and Richter reluctantly kills Lisa. Gestapo Commissioner Joachim Helm (George Coulouris of "Citizen Kane") discovers Richter in Lisa Dorn's room. Richter and Helm get into a fistfight; Richter strangles Helm, and drops his body into the elevator shaft. A blond hotel hostess, Tilli, (Faye Emerson of "Lady Gangster") yearns for a new pair of shoes. She is prepared to do whatever it takes to acquire them. She has an on-again and off-again affair with an arrogant Luftwaffe pilot, and simultaneously struggles to get a pair of shoes from another German officer. He finds himself in trouble with the Fatherland because he has too much money invested outside of Germany, and he refuses to bring it home. General Dahnwitz (Raymond Massey of "Desperate Journey"), an arrogant Nazi who participated in a plot to kill Hitler, learns he must commit suicide or suffer a worse fate from the Gestapo. Dahnwitz delays his suicide until Gestapo officers arrive and stand guard outside his room.The Production Code Administration warned Warner Brothers "with regard to the suicide of General Dahnwitz, it is important that it not in any way be glorified, or justified, but played practically as an execution ordered by the Gestapo." Joseph Breen reminded the filmmakers that the suicide must be an order. "To get away from any flavor of glorifying suicide," the chief PCA censor also told the studio to omit a line of Dahnwitz's dialogue in which he said, "And a bullet is a much more elegant way out than a stomach cancer or a prostate operation." Breen reminded the filmmakers not to show Lisa undressing any farther than her skirt and that they not expose Lisa's person when she bathes. The studio obliged Breen and simply deleted the undressing scenes. Breen demanded that Tilli never be filmed in a kimono, which the PCA considered the visual equivalent of sexual immorality. He also wanted the filmmakers to play out intimate scenes in sitting rooms rather than bedrooms.With one exception, Warner Brothers eliminated the scenes showing a bed. The studio, however, must have hashed out an agreement with the PCA because Tilli and the Nazi Major are shown in her bedroom fully dressed but never in bed together. Breen also wanted Warner Brothers to explain where Martin Richter spent the night in Lisa's room. The studio removed this scene. The only time that Richter spends anywhere overnight is in the shaft of the out-of-order elevator.After having read the incomplete revised Hotel Berlin script of August 29, 1944, Breen reminded Warner Brothers about General Dahnwitz's suicide and the problems it could pose which Breen had addressed before. They wanted nobody left in doubt about the reason for Dahnwitz's suicide and stressed that he must be ordered to die. Warner Brothers accommodated Breen on this point. In another storyline ultimately deleted from the script, Breen told the studio that it could not talk about supplying morphine to a dope addict. Not only was the reference to morphine removed, but also the studio deleted the character. Breen also warned the filmmakers about characterizing Tilli as a hotel prostitute."Hotel Berlin" bristles with intrigue, but this wartime film is totally forgettable today. The lack of charismatic actors and actresses and the shortage of cool violence make the film seem almost boring by comparison to better Warner Brothers features. Mind you, the performances are top-rate and Peter Godrey's direction is crisp and efficient. War movie buffs will appreciate this more than the typical viewer unless "Hotel Berlin" is a late night treat for an insomniac.

***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.