Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Copyright 14 March 1945 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. A Warner Bros.-First National picture. New York opening at the Strand: 2 March 1945. U.S. release: 17 March 1945. U.K. release: 7 May 1945. Australian release: 28 June 1945. Copyright running time: 98 minutes. Australian length: 9,007 feet. 100 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Resistance leader, cornered in a Berlin Hotel, enlists the aid of an actress to help him escape.NOTES: Vicki Baum's Grand Hold (1930) was such a runaway bestseller, she spent the rest of her life (she died in 1960) trying to recapture the extent of that achievement. "You can live down any number of flops," she once admitted, "but you can't live down a success." Early in 1942 she saw Billy Wilder's film Five Graves To Cairo from which she conceived the idea of disguising a spy as a hotel waiter. This then is a Grand Hotel in a last-days-of-Berlin setting. Originally titled "Hotel Berlin '43", it was serialized in Collier's Magazine in late 1943 and published in book form the following year. Alternative film title: BERLIN HOTEL.COMMENT: Concocted by Vicki Baum of Grand Hotel, this is a delightfully flamboyant melodrama, engrossingly acted by a second-string but first-rate cast, stylishly directed by Peter Godfrey who makes the most of Carl Guthrie's fluidly fascinating camerawork and John Hughes' broodingly magnificent sets. Peopled with a nervous array of suspensefully interlocking characters who are at the mercy of times and tides - and air raids - it's impossible to take your attention off the film for a second. I'd hate to miss just one nuance of Henry Daniell's diplomatic double-dealing (one of his largest and most memorable roles), or a single twitch of George Coulouris' cat-and-mousing, or the tiniest spasm of Peter Lorre's despairing eye-rolling ("One good German? Perhaps we'll find him in the closet!"). Every role is perfectly cast - from the major leads (Dantine as the fugitive, Andrea King as the actress sympathizer, Raymond Massey as the general-in-a-trap, Faye Emerson as the hotel "hostess") to the minor supports (Alan Hale as a vengeful Nazi, Dickie Tyler as a harried bellboy), with splendid back-up from deft players like Steve Geray and Frank Reicher.Godfrey keeps the various story strands cracking along at a merry pace. Although conceived in melodramatic terms, the story ideas show a realistic lack of compromise - there is no cop-out conclusion - which makes them far less dated and acceptable to a more cynical modern audience than most other examples of Hollywood's wartime propaganda.

Most of the wartime pictures made in the US portray the Nazis as complete sadists...almost demonic. While there are bits of that in this film, the way they portray the Nazis in the final weeks of the war is a bit more multidimensional.In some ways, the film plays like a Nazified version of Grand Hotel- -with this Berlin hotel being a way to tie together the various stories in the picture. There are evil Nazis, not quite so evil Nazis, Germans not in the military that hate the Nazis and Germans who are just hoping to survive. As for the really terrible Nazis, some of the better actors who specialize in portraying evil characters are here...such as George Coulouris, Henry Danielle and Raymond Massey. The stories are engaging and the picture manages to show a reasonably accurate picture of Germany in the final days...which is amazing since the film came out only weeks before the war ended in Europe. Well made and its only fault is that, at times, the film seems overly long and a bit of editing would have helped the tempo.By the way, some of the anti-Nazis in the film were portrayed by folks who actually DID escape from Nazi Europe, such as Frank Reicher, Peter Lorre and Helmut Dantine.

Like "Grand Hotel," "Hotel Berlin" shows the lives of various guests and workers at a hotel at a specific point in time. This point in time is toward the end of the war, when Germany was obviously losing.Raymond Massey plays General Arnim von Dahnwitz, who is given the chance to commit suicide after an attempt on Hitler's life fails. He's in love with an actress, Lisa Dorn (Andrea King), who is a collaborator but, not sure where she's going to end up when the war ends, play both sides. In fact, an escaped prisoner (Helmut Dantine) hides in her room. He realizes he's been allowed to escape to lead the Germans to the underground.Tillie (Faye Emerson), the "hotel hostess" is an informant but plays as many sides as she can to get a new pair of shoes. She was in love with a Jewish man, Max, presumed dead, and his mother comes to her for help getting some pain medicine for her failing husband. It's then that she learns that Max is alive, and her attitude undergoes a change.Peter Lorre has a small role, that of a scientist who was imprisoned and then released (with no explanation for the audience) and has become an alcoholic.This film was released after the war, and it's a little more interesting than many propaganda films in that it shows the state of the German people, and separation from the beliefs of Hitler, even among officers. It's a time of confusion for a falling Germany.The acting is good, particularly from Faye Emerson as Tillie and Raymond Massey as the doomed General.Worth seeing, not your typical propaganda film.

Entertaining melodrama that revolves around an upscale hotel as the Nazi regime is tumbling down and the rats are deserting the sinking ship. What makes this film so much above the other anti Nazi propaganda films of it's time is that the whole Jewish prejudice issue is actually dealt with, (can only think of one other film in the WW2 era that even mentions it---The Mortal Storm (1940) another 4 star movie). Even has one character having to wear the yellow star on her chest. Another exploding in a bomb shelter at the Nazi who tormented her Jewish lover to death because she was a gentile in love with a Jew. I was never bored in this movie as plots and subplots are unravelled. Warners B roster of character actors including Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Andrea King, Alan Hale, Philip Dorn, Faye Emerson (who steals the movie as the hotel prostitute)and all the rest are very good. Never released on VHS or DVD. Wish it was. Forgotten film but was brought up in McCarthy Witch Hunt trials of 1950's getting the writer into trouble and some jail time. Recommend this film highly.