Hotel (1967 Richard Quine)

My, we do love Rod Taylor, even though - or perhaps because - he is always the same character (The Mercenaries being a notable exception). Here he's reliable Pete, Manager of the St Gregory Hotel, New Orleans, under father figure Melvyn Douglas. He has to contend with erring Peers Michael Rennie and Merle Oberon, hotel detective Richard Conte, thief Karl Malden, hotel acquisitor Kevin McCarthy and his girlfriend Catherine Spaak (below).

Adapted from Arthur Hailey novel by Wendell Hayes; shot by Charles Lang. Has such a catchy, easy-going score by Johnny Keating it has the effect of making you feel you were sat in the hotel bar, enjoying the comings and the goings.

Merle Oberon, a distant relation of Shelley Conn *

Rod with Carmen McRae. "The drinks are on the house!"

Plotwise I feel it would have been cool for the hotel to have used the thief in some useful capacity; and that a last-minute rescuer of the hotel could have appeared (cf. Michael J Fox The Concierge). And thus film could be quite usefully remade?

* Says who? I can't substantiate that at all.