Hotel (DVD)

Another bestseller from Arthur Hailey (Airport, Wheels, The Moneychangers) comes to pulsating life in this grand, multi-storied feature film that explodes the secrets of a dozen private lives. Through the doors of the St. Gregory, a posh, aging luxury hotel in the lusty New Orleans French Quarter, pass the powerful, the proud and the predatory. Among them are bigoted, blustery owner Melvyn Douglas, tough-minded general manager Rod Taylor, Merle Oberon as an arrogant Duchess who dominates her weak-willed diplomat husband (Michael Rennie), Kevin McCarthy as a Bible-thumping business tycoon who'll invoke any means to add the St. Gregory to his conformity-stamped hotel chain, Richard Conte as a duplicitous detective and Karl Malden as the thief with a briefcase full of room keys, compliments of the town's hookers. Only so many secrets can be swept under the plush carpet of the St. Gregory.