WEEK-END AT THE WALDORF
(M-G-M)
HIS is, on the whole, an entertaining and amusing show, one of those gorgeous, glossy, star-studded fabrications
which Hollywood (and particularly M-G-M) knows so well how to produce. And though I would hesitate to recommend it to devotees of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Lorentz, there is a sense in which Week-End at the Waldorf is a social or historical document, as well as an entertainment, since it provides us, in nearly 12,000 feet, with an
inside view of one of the most fantastic and exclusive Temples of Mammon ever raised by human hands. I can well imagine that a social historian of the future may find this picture peculiarly ifiteresting for the insight it gives him into an important aspect of civilisation in the fifth decade of the 20th Century, and it will not be surprising if he attaches some religi-. ous or ritualistic significance to what he sees happening inside the fabulous Wal-dorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. Because previous research into the motionpicture will already have made him thoroughly familiar with them, he will probably either disregard, or at least give only passing attention to, the main characters of the story: the film actress (Ginger Rogers) who falls in love with the war correspondent (Walter Pidgeon), believing him to be a jewel thief; the poor stenographer (Lana Turner) who hesitates between the sick airman (Van Johnson), who offers her only his love and a little place in the country, and the .crooked financier (Edward Arnold), who offers her no wedding ring but an apartment on Park Avenue. The social historian will, I think, be much more likely to concentrate instead on the incidental evidence which the film provides of how 20th Century man worshipped the god of money in surroundings of ostentatious luxury, to the great envy and vicarious delight of all those not rich enough to enter the sacred portals. He will notice the fanatic eagerness of the worshippers to prove their devotion by pouring out money like water on the altars of their god set up in the Palm Lounge, the Starlight. Roof, and the Cocktail Bar. He cannot fail also to be impressed by the efficiency with which the priests and attendants of this skyscraping temple encouraged the sacrifices of the faithful, catering to their every need-except perhaps the good of their souls-with serried ranks of telephone girls, regiments of bell-boys
(drawn up every morning for glove inspection), a private police force, the services of barbers, stenographers, and notaries public, facilities for holding society weddings, luxury shops right on the premises, suites the size of large houses, and the music of Xavier Cugat. Oh well, I wouldn’t mind spending a week-end at the Waldorf myself. Since I’m neVer likely to (and neither are you, as M-G-M know full well), this is possibly the next best thing-and we can get it all for one-and-six.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19460517.2.55.1.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 360, 17 May 1946, Page 30
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481WEEK-END AT THE WALDORF New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 360, 17 May 1946, Page 30
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