Old Meets New in Sophisticated 1967 Soaper

1967 was a key year in American films, with Old Hollywood continuing its fall against the insurgent New Hollywood influenced by the French New Wave and typlified by "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Graduate."

But early in '67, Warner Brothers put out "Hotel," an old-fashioned soap opera with a nonetheless new-fashioned take on such matters as civil rights in New Orleans and union takeovers of old hotels.

I love this movie, which, despite its trendy 1967 political aspects, is still a smooth throwback to the "Grand Hotel" tradition of interweaving stories, stylishly directed by Richard Quine ("Bell, Book, and Candle.")

The film was made from a novel by Arthur Hailey, who would write a bigger best-seller a few years later ("Airport") that would yield a much bigger hit movie. For my money, "Hotel" is the more sophisticated and "movie-ish" of the two Hailey-book films.

Three main stories interact: (1) the business battle to take over the hotel, which incorporates relevant LBJ-era union and civil rights issues; (2) The cover-up and blackmail attendant to a hit-and-run by a regal guest; (3) The comedy relief antics of a hotel room "key thief" who makes nightly raids on guests' rooms as he tries to make a big score. It all comes together in an elevator cliffhanger.

Warners couldn't quite hire a top-of-the-line male lead for the picture, but the always-underrated second-tier man Rod Taylor ("The Birds") did well in leading a cast that included quite a few solid old stars of the decades before.

Melvyn Douglas is the proud-but-elderly owner of the fading old New Orleans Hotel, the St. Gregory; Taylor is his surrogate son. Karl Malden is Keycase Milne, who robs the rooms of guests by night using now-obsolete methods. Malden plays the role in near-silence, as comic relief with a trace of kleptomaniac nuttiness. Stately Michael Rennie ("The Day the Earth Stood Still") and gorgeously aged Merle Oberon are the royal couple whose killing of a little boy with their Jaguar leads to blackmail from hotel detective Richard Conte (who trails a whole 40's noir tough-guy tradition behind him), while Kevin McCarthy appears (in a role turned down by Malden) as the ruthless hotel magnate who wants to buy the St. Gregory and remold it into a faceless, money-grubbing monstrosity. McCarthy brings a sexy French girlfriend (Catherine Spaak) with him, to complicate things with Rod Taylor.

Not the starriest of casts, but a very good cast nonetheless.

Favorite bits: the surrogate father-son relationship between hotel owner Melvyn Douglas and his ace manager Rod Taylor; the amusing antics of Karl Malden as Keycase (in one of Malden's personal favorite roles); and the tough intelligence of the three-way battle to take over the hotel.

The characters are smart, witty, and gracious (even the villains), the mood slightly mournful for the good old days. Johnny Keating's lush score shifts easily from sad melancholy (for the grand lost past of this grand hotel) to sexy jazz (in accord with the film's New Orleans setting.) Indeed, all these years later, the film's nostalgia for the grandeur and sexiness of "Old New Orleans" carries a greater sting today than in 1967.

"Hotel" is on TV sometimes, and on VHS. Hard to find, but Irecommend that you check in to "Hotel" if you can.