Best movie of this year hands down!

Wonderful character development!

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This movie has a stellar cast and lavish hotel for a setting. Rod Taylor, as Peter McDermott, hotel manager, and Melvyn Douglas as Mr. Warren Trent, hotel owner, are the most interesting characters in the movie. New money hotel tycoon, played by Kevin McCarthy as Curtis O'Keefe, tries to take over a venerable hotel called the St. Gregory. Into this environment, we find a key thief, Karl Malden, swindler, Richard Conte, and a corrupt aristocratic couple, Michael Rennie and Merle Oberon. The opening credits are creatively designed but lead to false expectations as to the quality of the production. Edith Head, the legendary costume designer, once again makes her mark with her stunning wardrobes on female actors, Catherine Spaak and Merle Oberon. Carmen McRae appears as a night club singer and the street scenes and jazz music are very fitting for New Orleans. McCarthy is badly miscast and seems worlds away from his patented roles in b-movies of the 1950's. Douglas, in his limited role, represents the old money world of a hospitality industry that no longer exists: elegant on the outside but full of vice and inefficiency. Trent dislikes O'Keefe and his profits-first mentality, that would see his hotel stripped of its beauty and tradition. As hotel manager, Taylor is able to keep the St. Gregory from sliding into bankruptcy by smart public relations and his personal rapport with the staff. Taylor is the rugged, well- groomed guy, a smart operator with a heart, a role that suits him to a tee. He also keeps Douglas in line, almost like a dutiful son to an elderly father. The movie has a certain style, impressive setting and cast but there is no coherence in the meandering storyline with several subplots.

From 1967, "Hotel" is based on the book by Arthur Hailey, who wrote the original "Airport" and more importantly, "Zero Hour," the inspiration for "Airplane!" "Hotel" concerns the last day of the elegant St. Gregory Hotel in New Orleans. Some years later, Hailey's work would be credited for several episodes on the TV series "Hotel," also about the St. Gregory, this time in San Francisco.The film boasts a top cast, starring Rod Taylor, Melvyn Douglas, Merle Oberon, Karl Malden, Kevin McCarthy, Richard Conte, Camilla Sparv, Carmen McRae, and Michael Rennie. Each character deals with a life-changing moment: the manager, McDermott (Taylor) and the owner Trent (Douglas) face the end of an era, while McDermott falls for the girlfriend (Sparv) of a man with a chain of hotels who wants the St. Gregory (McCarthy); Karl Malden is a thief working the hotel; Oberon and Rennie fled the scene of an auto accident and Oberon now wants the telltale car removed by Conte. Carmen McRae plays the lounge singer."Hotel" is entertaining and the performances are decent, with the possible exception of Camilla Sparv, who in the '60s was touted as a great beauty and is treated as such in the film. She is pretty boring, and as far as I'm concerned, can't hold a candle to the stunning Oberon. Fifty-six at the time of the film's release, Oberon was one of the first actresses to address aging in films and was quite open about efforts to keep her looks. She was successful. Rennie as her husband is very handsome, though he doesn't have a lot to do.Entertaining.

Unfortunately this is the impression you get of this film when watching it, although the excellent acting and very grandiose set pieces have nothing in common with the crap, long-running English soap opera. In addition to the already mentioned, top marks go to Rod Taylor as the no-nonsense hotel manager and Kevin McCarthy as the obsessed businessman intent on buying the hotel to settle a petty score. The supporting cast were also great and eased the sometimes mundane scenes. Likewise I agree that the 'outside' scenes were too obviously the Warner Brother's backlot and the big-band score was a bit annoying and repetitive.I think the problem with this film is that, although Arthur Hailey's novels make great easy reading, they don't really transfer well onto the big screen which is probably why you get many adapted and spectacular disaster sequels of his 'Airport' series. Sequels of 'Hotel' were obviously never going to happen.

I was attracted to this movie because of the all-star cast and it takes place in my favorite city, New Orleans, Louisiana. Sadly, only three scenes were actually filmed in the "Crescent City," the rest are PAINFULLY evident that they were filmed on the Warner Brothers Studio backlot. As for the movie itself, it's very dated and not very good. The background music is so distracting that it drove me mad! Blaring away whenever dialog is not being spoken. Proves that silence, at times, is indeed golden.