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The Grand Budapest Hotel, in a film by the same name, is comedy about a concierge who teams up with an employee to prove his innocence after being framed for a murder of a wealthy hotel guest. The film’s stylised sets captures the grandeur of this fictitious hotel located atop a mountain in fictional Republic of Zubrowka, an European alpine state. Guests who stay at the Grand Budapest enjoy the exquisite surrounding and top-class service of a bygone era. Photo: Martin Scali -
Casino Royale, arguably the best Bond film ever, was Daniel Craig’s debut as the latest incarnation of MI5 agent James Bond. The 18th-century Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic, or Hotel Splendide as it is called in the film, is a place where the wealthy and aristocratic come to frolic, making it the perfect setting for a super exclusive poker game. In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig is seen dashing around the Grandhotel Pupp hotel’s reception and car park, and eating in its restaurant. Rates start at €216 ($A323.93) per night and includes buffet breakfast, VAT and entry to the hotel’s wellness centre (does not including tax). Photo: Jay Maidment -
Casino Royale, arguably the best Bond film ever, was Daniel Craig’s debut as the latest incarnation of MI5 agent James Bond. The 18th-century Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic, or Hotel Splendide as it is called in the film, is a place where the wealthy and aristocratic come to frolic, making it the perfect setting for a super exclusive poker game. In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig is seen dashing around the Grandhotel Pupp hotel’s reception and car park, and eating in its restaurant. Rates start at €216 $A323.93) per night and includes buffet breakfast, VAT and entry to the hotel’s wellness centre (does not including tax). Photo: www.pupp.cz -
Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot -
Hotel del Coranado in San Diego -
Who could resist this classic heart-warming story about a wealthy businessman by the name of Edward, played by Richard Gere, who hires and falls for a LA prostitute named Vivien, played by Julia Roberts? Littered with not-so-bad 80s/90s fashion and high-tech gadgets of the time, the film is set in the luxurious Beverly Wilshire hotel in Beverly Hills - the perfect street-to-society makeover (the red dress scene). Although the hotel’s exterior and the lobby seen in the film is the real Beverly Wilshire, Edward’s penthouse suite was a set built in a studio. It bears little resemblance to hotel’s real specialty suites, which is where a man of Edward’s sophistication and wealth would have stayed. Rates at the Beverly Wilshire start from $US565 ($A603.97) per night. -
Who could resist this classic heart-warming story about a wealthy businessman by the name of Edward, played by Richard Gere, who hires and falls for a LA prostitute named Vivien, played by Julia Roberts? Littered with not-so-bad 80s/90s fashion and high-tech gadgets of the time, the film is set in the luxurious Beverly Wilshire hotel in Beverly Hills - the perfect street-to-society makeover (the red dress scene). Although the hotel’s exterior and the lobby seen in the film is the real Beverly Wilshire, Edward’s penthouse suite was a set built in a studio. It bears little resemblance to hotel’s real specialty suites, which is where a man of Edward’s sophistication and wealth would have stayed. Rates at the Beverly Wilshire start from $US565 ($A603.97) per night. -
Like the story of Cinderella, Maid in Manhattan is a fairytale come true for one New York hotel maid who meets and falls in love with a charming, handsome politician. While the film received poor reviews, it highlighted some city’s greatest landmarks, The Roosevelt Hotel, named after a US President, and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the first hotel to offer room service. Rates at the Roosevelt Hotel start from $US309 ($A334.17) and at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, rates start from $US499 ($A539.62). -
Like the story of Cinderella, Maid in Manhattan is a fairytale come true for one New York hotel maid who meets and falls in love with a charming, handsome politician. While the film received poor reviews, it highlighted some city’s greatest landmarks, The Roosevelt Hotel, named after a US President, and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the first hotel to offer room service. Rates at the Roosevelt Hotel start from $US309 ($A334.17) and at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, rates start from $US499 ($A539.62). -
Nothing was lost in Sofia Coppola’s poignant comedy-drama about an aging actor and a college graduate, whose chance encounter in a Tokyo hotel paves the way for an exploration of loneliness and cultural disconnect in a modern Japanese city. Lost in Translation was shot on location over a course of 27 days from September and October 2002. It made famous the New York Bar which is located the top floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo Hotel in Shinjuku and on the 52nd floor of the Shinjuku Park; many of the hotel’s interior scenes were shot overnight as crews were not allowed to shoot in the public space until after 1am. The New York Bar has become a hugely popular Tokyo social scene since the film’s release and is the city’s top live music venue with jazz performances everyone night. There is now a cover charge of JPY 2200 ($A23.20) in placed after a certain time for the general public; staying hotel guests are exempted. Room rates at the Park Hyatt Tokyo start from JPY 57,000 ($A601.30). Photo: Universal Studios -
Nothing was lost in Sofia Coppola’s poignant comedy-drama about an aging actor and a college graduate, whose chance encounter in a Tokyo hotel paves the way for an exploration of loneliness and cultural disconnect in a modern Japanese city. Lost in Translation was shot on location over a course of 27 days from September and October 2002. It made famous the New York Bar which is located the top floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo Hotel in Shinjuku and on the 52nd floor of the Shinjuku Park; many of the hotel’s interior scenes were shot overnight as crews were not allowed to shoot in the public space until after 1am. The New York Bar has become a hugely popular Tokyo social scene since the film’s release and is the city’s top live music venue with jazz performances everyone night. There is now a cover charge of JPY 2200 ($A23.20) in placed after a certain time for the general public; staying hotel guests are exempted. Room rates at the Park Hyatt Tokyo start from JPY 57,000 ($A601.30). -
Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief has all the trappings of a Hollywood classic - a strong leading man, a beautiful leading lady, and the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera. The film - about a retired cat burglar on the hunt to catch a new "cat" preying on wealthy tourists in order to save his reputation as a reformed burglar - was largely shot on location in the south of France, in Cannes, Nice and the surrounding countryside. The InterContinental Carlton Cannes was the perfect location for Hitchcock's film - where else would a cat burglar find enough jewels satisfy its appetite? The hotel was also the destination for Kate, played my Megan Ryan, to woo back her man in the 1995 movie French Kiss. The Rates at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes start from €500 ($A743.43) per night. The hotel has 343 rooms and suites, restaurants and bars, its famously stunning terrace and private beach of fine sand. -
Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief has all the trappings of a Hollywood classic - a strong leading man, a beautiful leading lady, and the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera. The film - about a retired cat burglar on the hunt to catch a new "cat" preying on wealthy tourists in order to save his reputation as a reformed burglar - was largely shot on location in the south of France, in Cannes, Nice and the surrounding countryside. The InterContinental Carlton Cannes was the perfect location for Hitchcock's film - where else would a cat burglar find enough jewels satisfy its appetite? The hotel was also the destination for Kate, played my Megan Ryan, to woo back her man in the 1995 movie French Kiss. The Rates at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes start from €500 ($A743.43) per night. The hotel has 343 rooms and suites, restaurants and bars, its famously stunning terrace and private beach of fine sand. -
Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief has all the trappings of a Hollywood classic - a strong leading man, a beautiful leading lady, and the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera. The film - about a retired cat burglar on the hunt to catch a new "cat" preying on wealthy tourists in order to save his reputation as a reformed burglar - was largely shot on location in the south of France, in Cannes, Nice and the surrounding countryside. The InterContinental Carlton Cannes was the perfect location for Hitchcock's film - where else would a cat burglar find enough jewels satisfy its appetite? The hotel was also the destination for Kate, played my Megan Ryan, to woo back her man in the 1995 movie French Kiss. The Rates at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes start from €500 ($A743.43) per night. The hotel has 343 rooms and suites, restaurants and bars, its famously stunning terrace and private beach of fine sand. -
Stephen King’s The Shining was inspired by The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, where King once stayed the night before it closed for an extended period in 1973. It was almost deserted. He was in room 217. Sound familiar? Just like King’s fictional Overlook Hotel, The Stanley is supposedly haunted. Guests report hearing the ghosts of children playing in the corridors at night, and cleaned rooms ending up in disarray. King’s imagination was sent into overdrive. The author was disappointed when the film’s director Stanley Kubrick decided it was not practical to film at The Stanley, nor was there enough snow, so instead he took the set to the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. As a tribute, King had the mini-series adapted from the book shot on site at The Stanley in 1997. -
Stephen King’s The Shining was inspired by The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, where King once stayed the night before it closed for an extended period in 1973. It was almost deserted. He was in room 217. Sound familiar? Just like King’s fictional Overlook Hotel, The Stanley is supposedly haunted. Guests report hearing the ghosts of children playing in the corridors at night, and cleaned rooms ending up in disarray. King’s imagination was sent into overdrive. The author was disappointed when the film’s director Stanley Kubrick decided it was not practical to film at The Stanley, nor was there enough snow, so instead he took the set to the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. As a tribute, King had the mini-series adapted from the book shot on site at The Stanley in 1997. Photo: Mark Rightmire -
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The Grand Budapest Hotel, in a film by the same name, is comedy about a concierge who teams up with an employee to prove his innocence after being framed for a murder of a wealthy hotel guest. The film’s stylised sets captures the grandeur of this fictitious hotel located atop a mountain in fictional Republic of Zubrowka, an European alpine state. Guests who stay at the Grand Budapest enjoy the exquisite surrounding and top-class service of a bygone era. Photo: Martin Scali of -
Casino Royale, arguably the best Bond film ever, was Daniel Craig’s debut as the latest incarnation of MI5 agent James Bond. The 18th-century Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic, or Hotel Splendide as it is called in the film, is a place where the wealthy and aristocratic come to frolic, making it the perfect setting for a super exclusive poker game. In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig is seen dashing around the Grandhotel Pupp hotel’s reception and car park, and eating in its restaurant. Rates start at €216 ($A323.93) per night and includes buffet breakfast, VAT and entry to the hotel’s wellness centre (does not including tax). Photo: Jay Maidment of -
Casino Royale, arguably the best Bond film ever, was Daniel Craig’s debut as the latest incarnation of MI5 agent James Bond. The 18th-century Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic, or Hotel Splendide as it is called in the film, is a place where the wealthy and aristocratic come to frolic, making it the perfect setting for a super exclusive poker game. In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig is seen dashing around the Grandhotel Pupp hotel’s reception and car park, and eating in its restaurant. Rates start at €216 $A323.93) per night and includes buffet breakfast, VAT and entry to the hotel’s wellness centre (does not including tax). Photo: www.pupp.cz of -
Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot of -
Hotel del Coranado in San Diego of -
Who could resist this classic heart-warming story about a wealthy businessman by the name of Edward, played by Richard Gere, who hires and falls for a LA prostitute named Vivien, played by Julia Roberts? Littered with not-so-bad 80s/90s fashion and high-tech gadgets of the time, the film is set in the luxurious Beverly Wilshire hotel in Beverly Hills - the perfect street-to-society makeover (the red dress scene). Although the hotel’s exterior and the lobby seen in the film is the real Beverly Wilshire, Edward’s penthouse suite was a set built in a studio. It bears little resemblance to hotel’s real specialty suites, which is where a man of Edward’s sophistication and wealth would have stayed. Rates at the Beverly Wilshire start from $US565 ($A603.97) per night. of -
Who could resist this classic heart-warming story about a wealthy businessman by the name of Edward, played by Richard Gere, who hires and falls for a LA prostitute named Vivien, played by Julia Roberts? Littered with not-so-bad 80s/90s fashion and high-tech gadgets of the time, the film is set in the luxurious Beverly Wilshire hotel in Beverly Hills - the perfect street-to-society makeover (the red dress scene). Although the hotel’s exterior and the lobby seen in the film is the real Beverly Wilshire, Edward’s penthouse suite was a set built in a studio. It bears little resemblance to hotel’s real specialty suites, which is where a man of Edward’s sophistication and wealth would have stayed. Rates at the Beverly Wilshire start from $US565 ($A603.97) per night. of -
Like the story of Cinderella, Maid in Manhattan is a fairytale come true for one New York hotel maid who meets and falls in love with a charming, handsome politician. While the film received poor reviews, it highlighted some city’s greatest landmarks, The Roosevelt Hotel, named after a US President, and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the first hotel to offer room service. Rates at the Roosevelt Hotel start from $US309 ($A334.17) and at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, rates start from $US499 ($A539.62). of -
Like the story of Cinderella, Maid in Manhattan is a fairytale come true for one New York hotel maid who meets and falls in love with a charming, handsome politician. While the film received poor reviews, it highlighted some city’s greatest landmarks, The Roosevelt Hotel, named after a US President, and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the first hotel to offer room service. Rates at the Roosevelt Hotel start from $US309 ($A334.17) and at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, rates start from $US499 ($A539.62). of -
Nothing was lost in Sofia Coppola’s poignant comedy-drama about an aging actor and a college graduate, whose chance encounter in a Tokyo hotel paves the way for an exploration of loneliness and cultural disconnect in a modern Japanese city. Lost in Translation was shot on location over a course of 27 days from September and October 2002. It made famous the New York Bar which is located the top floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo Hotel in Shinjuku and on the 52nd floor of the Shinjuku Park; many of the hotel’s interior scenes were shot overnight as crews were not allowed to shoot in the public space until after 1am. The New York Bar has become a hugely popular Tokyo social scene since the film’s release and is the city’s top live music venue with jazz performances everyone night. There is now a cover charge of JPY 2200 ($A23.20) in placed after a certain time for the general public; staying hotel guests are exempted. Room rates at the Park Hyatt Tokyo start from JPY 57,000 ($A601.30). Photo: Universal Studios of -
Nothing was lost in Sofia Coppola’s poignant comedy-drama about an aging actor and a college graduate, whose chance encounter in a Tokyo hotel paves the way for an exploration of loneliness and cultural disconnect in a modern Japanese city. Lost in Translation was shot on location over a course of 27 days from September and October 2002. It made famous the New York Bar which is located the top floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo Hotel in Shinjuku and on the 52nd floor of the Shinjuku Park; many of the hotel’s interior scenes were shot overnight as crews were not allowed to shoot in the public space until after 1am. The New York Bar has become a hugely popular Tokyo social scene since the film’s release and is the city’s top live music venue with jazz performances everyone night. There is now a cover charge of JPY 2200 ($A23.20) in placed after a certain time for the general public; staying hotel guests are exempted. Room rates at the Park Hyatt Tokyo start from JPY 57,000 ($A601.30). of -
Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief has all the trappings of a Hollywood classic - a strong leading man, a beautiful leading lady, and the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera. The film - about a retired cat burglar on the hunt to catch a new "cat" preying on wealthy tourists in order to save his reputation as a reformed burglar - was largely shot on location in the south of France, in Cannes, Nice and the surrounding countryside. The InterContinental Carlton Cannes was the perfect location for Hitchcock's film - where else would a cat burglar find enough jewels satisfy its appetite? The hotel was also the destination for Kate, played my Megan Ryan, to woo back her man in the 1995 movie French Kiss. The Rates at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes start from €500 ($A743.43) per night. The hotel has 343 rooms and suites, restaurants and bars, its famously stunning terrace and private beach of fine sand. of -
Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief has all the trappings of a Hollywood classic - a strong leading man, a beautiful leading lady, and the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera. The film - about a retired cat burglar on the hunt to catch a new "cat" preying on wealthy tourists in order to save his reputation as a reformed burglar - was largely shot on location in the south of France, in Cannes, Nice and the surrounding countryside. The InterContinental Carlton Cannes was the perfect location for Hitchcock's film - where else would a cat burglar find enough jewels satisfy its appetite? The hotel was also the destination for Kate, played my Megan Ryan, to woo back her man in the 1995 movie French Kiss. The Rates at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes start from €500 ($A743.43) per night. The hotel has 343 rooms and suites, restaurants and bars, its famously stunning terrace and private beach of fine sand. of -
Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief has all the trappings of a Hollywood classic - a strong leading man, a beautiful leading lady, and the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera. The film - about a retired cat burglar on the hunt to catch a new "cat" preying on wealthy tourists in order to save his reputation as a reformed burglar - was largely shot on location in the south of France, in Cannes, Nice and the surrounding countryside. The InterContinental Carlton Cannes was the perfect location for Hitchcock's film - where else would a cat burglar find enough jewels satisfy its appetite? The hotel was also the destination for Kate, played my Megan Ryan, to woo back her man in the 1995 movie French Kiss. The Rates at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes start from €500 ($A743.43) per night. The hotel has 343 rooms and suites, restaurants and bars, its famously stunning terrace and private beach of fine sand. of -
Stephen King’s The Shining was inspired by The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, where King once stayed the night before it closed for an extended period in 1973. It was almost deserted. He was in room 217. Sound familiar? Just like King’s fictional Overlook Hotel, The Stanley is supposedly haunted. Guests report hearing the ghosts of children playing in the corridors at night, and cleaned rooms ending up in disarray. King’s imagination was sent into overdrive. The author was disappointed when the film’s director Stanley Kubrick decided it was not practical to film at The Stanley, nor was there enough snow, so instead he took the set to the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. As a tribute, King had the mini-series adapted from the book shot on site at The Stanley in 1997. of -
Stephen King’s The Shining was inspired by The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, where King once stayed the night before it closed for an extended period in 1973. It was almost deserted. He was in room 217. Sound familiar? Just like King’s fictional Overlook Hotel, The Stanley is supposedly haunted. Guests report hearing the ghosts of children playing in the corridors at night, and cleaned rooms ending up in disarray. King’s imagination was sent into overdrive. The author was disappointed when the film’s director Stanley Kubrick decided it was not practical to film at The Stanley, nor was there enough snow, so instead he took the set to the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. As a tribute, King had the mini-series adapted from the book shot on site at The Stanley in 1997. Photo: Mark Rightmire of -
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I don't think it's any secret that I adore a grand hotel, especially if it's full of character and history, even if it's a little seedy. So the prospect of one of my favourite directors, Wes Anderson, creating a movie entitled The Grand Budapest Hotel was likely to set my heart thumping.
It took me a while to get to the cinema, this being one film I did not want to watch on a plane, so I played with the completely adorable website (grandbudapesthotel.com) for a few weeks in anticipation.
Having just returned from a Saturday afternoon session, I can now report that the film is nirvana for hotel junkies, an utterly captivating, imaginatively detailed and brilliantly art directed tour de force about the sentimental attraction of a former lobby boy to a once-magnificent alpine hotel that declined in the 1960s to Communist-run dilapidation.
Margaret Pomeranz gave it five stars and called it "the most exhilarating piece of cinema in recent memory". (David, ever curmudgeonly, withheld half a star.) I'd give it six. Everything I love about grand old hotels is crammed into 100 hilarious and touching minutes, including obsequious concierges, bellboys in camp uniforms, eccentric guests and vast, bustling lobbies.
Like Wes Anderson, I have a great affection for eastern European hotels that have perhaps seen better times, preserved in all their dusty glory through decades of neglect.
There aren't that many of them left, as the insidious march of hotel development (and modern interior design) jackboots its way through the lobbies of the old Austro-Hungarian empire.
Finding the right degree of extravagant but worn opulence is getting harder and harder. These days, hotel guests just don't seem to have a taste for taxidermy, flock velvet drapes and heavy wood panelling. I don't know what's wrong with them.
That's why Wes Anderson had to invent the hotel of his dreams. In the tradition of the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo and the Hotel de Londres in Paris, the Grand Budapest Hotel is not in Budapest but in the fictional alpine state of Zubrowka. For the filming, locations were found in Gorlitz in Germany's Saxony region. This beautiful lobby of the hotel, with its glass atrium, was in fact the ground floor of a magnificent old art nouveau department store in that city. The rest of it was confected in a studio.
One of Anderson's inspirations is the old Hotel Gellert in Budapest. I haven't stayed there, but once visited its famous Turkish bath. While it wasn't quite as unpleasant as the grim spa baths in the 1960s-era Grand Budapest Hotel, there was something distinctly rundown and mouldy about it. You can't beat those eastern European masseuses for giving you a real rattling. Unfortunately, I'm reliably informed the Gellert's guest rooms are more Holiday Inn than alpine fantasy.
By the way, if you want a really grand Budapest hotel, you might try the Gresham Palace on the Danube. It's now part of the Four Seasons group and has had an expensive restoration, but happily the magnificent art nouveau stained glass ceiling in the lobby and the room decor still evoke a time when people moved into a hotel for a whole season.
Anderson and his cast cite the Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic and Hotel Carlo IV in Prague as inspirations for the film, but I've checked them out online and they both have had modern facelifts, as have classic hotels such as the Adlon in Berlin, the Imperial in Vienna and Istanbul's Pera Palace, where Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in 1933.
A famously disreputable east European hotel is the Athenee Palace, Bucharest, which features in novelist Olivia Manning's wonderful Balkan trilogy. Once a hothouse of Nazi and British spies, the intrigue continued through the Cold War era, with the government bugging the rooms andthe maids instructed to rifle through guests' drawers. I once went to its famous English Bar for a drink. But it's now a Hilton and there are no signs of skulduggery. This is a very sad state of affairs. The closest any of us may get to staying in a hotel like the Grand Budapest is to bring our pillows to the cinema.
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