And when she's singing, you see that she can't

[sovay]

Well, last night was a horror of sleeplessness having nothing to do with native insomnia and everything to do with being repeatedly woken on a night when I had been trying to sleep specifically to make up for not doing so. Have some links.

1. I had no idea there ever had been a 1930 Broadway play of Grand Hotel preceding the 1932 Hollywood movie. Absolutely nobody in it appears to have transferred to the film except Raffaella Ottiano (which I now suspect explains why her equivalent character in the 1989 musical is named Raffaella rather than Suzette). Sam Jaffe looks perfect as Otto Kringelein. If I couldn't get Buster Keaton, I'd have gladly accepted him.

2. Courtesy of skygiants: my new favorite Bletchley Park story. "The mistake led to a moss specialist being deposited into one of the most intense covert operations of the war."

3. Courtesy of mooncustafer: "Franz Kafka's Part Time Job."

4. Courtesy of larryhammer: Thomas Bailey Aldrich, "Sea Longings."

5. Currently on internal repeat for reasons unknown to me: Theodore Bikel's "The Kretchma." I love how he can shrug and play a guitar at the same time.

Prior to the sleeplessness, spatch and I made Monte Cristo sandwiches for dinner and they were great. No powdered sugar was involved, but I recommend the use of cinnamon and nutmeg in otherwise unsweetened egg batter. We even got back from the grocery store in the rain before our paper bags melted.

Comments

[sovay]

I was recounting it to my coworker today and by the end two other coworkers had popped up like meerkats over their cubicles to hear the thrilling conclusion.

That seems only sensible of them!

I've still never seen the Grand Hotel film, but we did the musical my junior year of high school; unfortunately I've only retained the bits of it where lyrics overlap with the names of popular restaurants, and the part where the school heartthrob got his tragic stage death.

That's perfect casting for the Baron, though.

I have the original Broadway cast recording; it has some nice songs and at least one bona-fide hit ("Love Can't Happen," arguably "Maybe My Baby Loves Me") and I would not otherwise call it a major musical, although I would certainly see a production if it ever played locally. Michael Jeter won his Tony for it.

I remember enjoying the film when I saw it in high school, but since reading the novel I have opinions about the character of Otto Kringelein and one of them is, Lionel Barrymore, really? [edit] Otto Kringelein, as you may or may not recall from high school, is a forty-six-year-old, highly nervous, probably Jewish and terminally ill bookkeeper who comes to Berlin from Fredersdorf to live out his final months in something resembling the style to which he always wanted to be able to afford to get accustomed; as the characters variously rise and fall, he's one of the ones who rise, because he has nothing left to lose and in addition to all of the above he is very kind. Of course I like him. The director of the 1932 film wanted Buster Keaton for the part and couldn't get Mayer to agree. Based on those pictures of Sam Jaffe and the reviews he received, I'm not sure why he wasn't even considered. I get the novelty of two Barrymores in the same show (what, was Ethel busy that week?), but Lionel really wouldn't have been my first choice after that.

[moon_custafer]

Almost being cast in Grand Hotel would explain where Keaton got his idea for a parody, which unfortunately he didn’t get to do either:

After GRAND HOTEL was released, Keaton, who had parodied others’ work since his days in vaudeville, got an idea for a take-off. His would be set in a well-known fleabag hotel in New York, the Mills Hotel. Jimmy Durante would take John Barrymore’s part, Marie Dressler would stand in for Garbo, Oliver Hardy would play Wallace Beery’s role, Polly Moran would replace Crawford and Keaton would finally play the part that went to Lionel Barrymore.
“In our version, Hardy would be a manufacturer of front collar buttons who is trying to arrange a merger with Stan Laurel, a manufacturer of back collar buttons,” Keaton writes in “My Wonderful World of Slapstick.”

[sovay]

Jimmy Durante would take John Barrymore’s part, Marie Dressler would stand in for Garbo, Oliver Hardy would play Wallace Beery’s role, Polly Moran would replace Crawford and Keaton would finally play the part that went to Lionel Barrymore.

Oh, man, I'd have watched that.