1931/32 Best Picture:
Grand Hotel

Other Winners:

Best Actor:  Tie: Wallace Beery, The Champ/Frederich March, Dr. Jeckyl & Mr. Hyde
Best Actress: Helen Hayes, The Sin of Madelon Claudet
Best Director: Frank Borzage, Bad Girl

Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt

Storyline: MGM puts its biggest stars on display, in this film about various characters, whose lives intersect one day, at Berlin's mythical, Grand Hotel.   

Did it deserve to win: Yeah, sure!  Before there was a Love Boat, there was MGM, the studio that loved to boast about its stable of movie stars.  Grand Hotel was hugely popular in its day, mainly because of its incredible cast, and holds up to this day, also because of its incredible cast.

Critique: In reality, Grand Hotel is nothing more than an overblown soap opera.  The entire cast act their little hearts out, but all in all, nothing really happens.  

John Barrymore is a bankrupt baron, looking for an opportunity.  Garbo is lonely ballerina.  Joan is the working girl, with a lot of moxy, a role that was typical for her back then.  She's a stenographer to Beery's gruff General.  And Lionel Barrymore is an ordinary man whose been given little time left to live.  

For film buffs, it's a treat just to see all of these actors together.  In its day, elaborate sets, in a far off setting, was enough to make this a prestigious film.  All of the actors were at the height of their popularity in 1932, and their performances are pleasantly over-the-top.  

Movies were a huge outlet for folks, barely scraping through the great depression in 1932.  Escapist fluff, particularly romantic films about the rich, and starring the famous, were gold mines to the studios.  Grand Hotel is a prime example.

 

Best Scene:  "I vant to be alone!"  Garbo's scenes with John Barrymore are the type of high drama that is almost laughable, perhaps because they have been spoofed over the years.  And yes, it was this film where she uttered that now famous line, that became the tagline for her career when she retired in 1941. 

In Grand Hotel, she's a depressed ballerina who cancels her performance one evening, and then gets pissy when she finds out that no one cared.  She is all aglow again, however, when she meets jewel thief, Barrymore, who stumbles into her room that night.

Behind the Scenes: Grand Hotel received only one Oscar nomination, and it was for Best Picture.  None of the actors received nods, not even Garbo or Barrymore.

Garbo was the biggest star of the day, and she was also very elusive.  Louis B. Mayer may have been frustrated by his hottest property's refusal to do PR work, but in the long run, it only enhanced the mystique of this unusual actress.  

The Barrymore brothers were considered the most respected actors of their day.  Most of their work was on stage.  John, the man with the profile, was the most honored, however, he never won an Oscar.   In 1932, with his brazen refusal to conform to Hollywood standards (he drank and slept his way around the studio), it was said that the Academy  had snubbed him.  Meanwhile, he was heard to have said that he would 'toss that phony Oscar' into the Ocean if he won it.

An early custom of the ceremonies was to read out the votes at the end of the night.  This was done to curb questions about the integrity of the voting, but also served to embarrass the losers even further.  That year, as Mayer was accepting his Best Picture award, the voting committee chairman, B.P. Schulberg summoned nost, and Academy President backstage.  After Mayer's speech, Nagel took to the stage and announced that there was a tie in the Best Actor race.

Earlier in the evening the award for Best Actor was handed to Frederic March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  A rule of the Academy was that if vote split was less than three, it would be a tie. In this case, the split was by one vote, and Wallace Beery was called to the stage for his performance in The Champ. 

Also in 1931/32:

September 30, 1931: London streets are filled with mobs of rioting unemployed, as they battle police during the heat of the world wide depression.

October 13, 1931: Thomas Edison dies at the age of 84.

March 2, 1932:  The Lindbergh baby is kidnapped.

May 12, 1932: The Lindbergh baby is found dead.

The Hayes Code was enacted back in 1930, but Hollywood wasn't taking it seriously.  The films became more risque, and the censors were still powerless.  During 1932, the religious groups were starting to form, and Joseph Breen was rising to prominence.  While he claimed that his mission was to save the world from immoral behavior on film, his private correspondance alluded to something else. "Those lousy Jews," one letter said.  "are simply a vile bunch of people with no respect for anything but the making of money...These Jews seem to think of nothing but money making and sexual indulgence.  The vilest kind of sin is commonplace hereabouts and the men and women who engage in this sort of business are the men and women who decide what the film fare of the nation is to be ... Ninety five percent of these folks are Jews of Eastern European lineage.  They are, probably , the scum of the earth."