"Grand Hotel. People coming, going... Nothing ever happens." This early line, from Dr. Otternschlag (Lewis Stone), is a masterpiece of understatement. Maybe what he means is that nothing that affects the world ever happens. Lovers fall in and out of love, thieves make their living, desperate people attempt to brush up against high society, people live and die, but, as the opening and closing shots tell us, life goes on. This film, which won Best Picture in 1932 (its only nomination), is a sometimes moving, sometimes funny, and almost always entertaining look at the decadence of Berlin between the world wars. But it's more than that: it's a look at the decadence of Hollywood at the beginning of its golden age under the studio system, and before the strictures of the Production Code limited the adult content of films.

The film's backstory is almost as entertaining as the film itself. Super-divas Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo both fought over screen time and top billing (Garbo won both), and the two acted like petty children in their efforts to upstage each other. Like most "packed with superstars" films, the starring cast often changed, with Wallace Beery and Garbo both initially refusing their roles until their demands were met. However, everyone came together admirably, and this film, which could have been clunky and awful (like so many other star-studded extravaganzas), ended up being quite enjoyable.

Garbo stars as Grusinskaya, a prima ballerina who is morose, suicidal, and given to fits. "Everything's cold and finished," she sighs after performing before empty seats. She doesn't want to dance anymore; "I just want to be alone," she whispers petulantly. She has an army of retainers who give in to her every whim, but her days of being such a diva are numbered after she cancels a show. John Barrymore plays Baron Felix von Geigern, a penniless nobleman reduced to stealing jewels to pay his gambling debts. He's after Gusinskaya's pearls, but he's a good man at heart. John's older brother Lionel Barrymore plays Otto Kringelein, a poor factory clerk who's been told he's dying; he's at the hotel spending his children's inheritance because he wants to live in luxury for a while before he croaks. Joan Crawford plays Flaemmchen, a stenographer who appears to be willing to whore herself out if the price is right. Wallace Beery plays Preysing, a repulsive industrialist who owns the factory where Kringelein slaves away. He's in town for a big merger, and he's not averse to lying to seal the deal or amorously pursuing Flaemmchen, who dislikes him but likes his money. Finally, Lewis Stone plays Otternschlag, who seems to be the conscience of the hotel. He serves as little more than a narrator, but he factors in a few key scenes.

Most of the performers are at the top of their game. Garbo vamps and whines and gestures like the worst kind of diva, but when she encounters true love, she softens into a likable character. This is only the second film I've seen John Barrymore in, and he gives a touching and nuanced performance as the romantic lead. He even gets to do some stunts. He has great scenes with both female leads; the best is when he meets and attempts to woo Crawford outside Beery's door, but his famous scene where he convinces Garbo not to off herself is almost as good. My problems were with Lionel Barrymore. One thing that happens in a lot of older dramas is that they will have a single character who's there for comic relief. Often, that character's scenes are a drag on the rest of the film, and that's the case here. Kringelein is a pitiful wreck who thanks people profusely for simply behaving humanely toward him, and his "drunk" scenes are especially bad.

I was impressed by the film's daring, at least for its day. There's the whole issue of Flaemmchen, who is a single woman given to going on "vacations" with various men. There's a great scene where she and Preysing basically negotiate the price at which she'll sell herself. The only things discussed are room and board, food, and clothes, but it's clear that in exchange for these things, he has rights to her body as well. She's the most believable reminder that there's a world outside the opulence of the hotel. There's also the sequence where John Barrymore, who has concealed himself in Garbo's closet in an effort to rob her, reveals himself to her and then stays the night. Viewers familiar with the shorthand of 1930s Hollywood will know at once what this overnight stay means.

This is the only film in history that won Best Picture and failed to be nominated for anything else—not that it didn't deserve some other nominations. For example, eleven-time Oscar winning art director Cedric Gibbons had a ball designing the disgustingly sumptuous hotel. He deserved at least a nomination, but his failure to garner one was the result of the nature of the Oscars in the early 1930s, not any failing of the voters. In most categories, there were only three nominees, which helps to explain the single nomination for this film, and the lack of nominations for John Barrymore, Garbo, the direction, or the cinematography. This is the best Best Picture Nominee from 1932 I've seen.