Palace Hotel (1952)

The Palace Hotel opens for the winter season. The hotel director has travelled to the United States on business and entrusted the management of the hotel to his wife. Although she knows a fair amount about the hotel business, she struggles to manage the staff. At the start of the season, Fredy Kehl arrives to take up the waiter’s position he had been promised. He had previously worked at the hotel as an assistant cook. The director’s wife ignores his excellent diploma from hotel school and puts him back in the kitchen, on the grounds that he cannot speak Italian. Fredy meets Speranza, the pretty Italian chambermaid, and takes Italian lessons from her. They fall in love and become a couple. Speranza gushes about Fredy to Emilie, her coworker and roommate. The next day, Emilie’s son Walter unexpectedly turns up at the hotel. As it turns out, while running an errand for his apprenticeship employer, the wine merchants “Gebrüder Caprez,” he lost a briefcase containing more than 1,800 francs, which Emilie is now being asked to repay. In her distress, Emilie turns to Consul Rainer and his wife, who have been regular guests at the hotel for many years. The consul not only manages to negotiate the wine merchants’ claim down to 1,000 francs, but also lends the money to the penniless Emilie. In doing so, Emilie has broken the management’s rules and could be summarily dismissed if it came to light that she had borrowed money from a guest. Chief stoker Hunziker is also in financial trouble. He has embezzled money from the club’s treasury and must put it back by the end of the year. Otherwise, the club president, Buol, has threatened to bring the matter before the committee. Preparations for the New Year’s Eve celebration are in full swing. Because of Staub’s health problems, Fredy’s dream finally comes true after all: he is promoted to waiter on the upper floor. When 300 US dollars go missing from guest Dr. Suvalà’s room, the director’s wife decides not to call the police, but instead conducts her own investigation among the staff. She finds a postal payment receipt for 1,000 francs on Emilie. (At the 1952 exchange rate, 300 US dollars was equivalent to about 1,600 francs.) When Emilie refuses to explain where she got the money, the case seems clear to the director’s wife: Emilie is the thief. Enraged, she initially wants to fire her on the spot, but then, after Staub intervenes, thinks better of it and transfers Emilie to the kitchen as punishment. Emilie bears her fate with dignity. Walter is allowed to stay at the hotel and begin an apprenticeship under cellar master Loosli. When money is stolen from the wine cellar, he comes under suspicion. At a staff meeting called by Staub, Hunziker deliberately fuels that suspicion. When Emilie confronts her son, it becomes clear that the two are strangers to each other and have no trust between them. The argument culminates in Emilie accusing Walter of possibly being as much of a liar as his late father. Loosli and Giachem are convinced that Walter and Emilie are innocent. Giachem remembers a way to catch a thief. In detective fashion, he puts out money as bait. The banknotes are treated with a chemical substance so that anyone who touches them will get black hands. The thief falls into the trap, but for the time being remains unidentified. Fredy also serves the beautiful Madame Perrot on the upper floor. She occupies room 127, known among the staff as the “marriage bureau,” because twice before, ladies staying in that room have married young waiters and taken them away. When she invites Fredy ice-skating, he begins to hope that something might come of it with the beautiful Frenchwoman. Speranza happens to see the two of them at the rink and makes a scene. The couple break up. Fredy’s hopes are dashed when Madame Perrot’s husband arrives at the hotel. When the fraudulent Dr. Suvalà makes a pass at Speranza, she calls Fredy for help, and a physical altercation breaks out between the men. Staub suffers a hemorrhage in his leg and has to be rushed to hospital. His daughter later receives a phone call from the hospital telling her to come to her father immediately. Staub’s condition apparently is not good. Shortly before New Year’s, Loosli and Giachem expose the thief and recover the money. In full view of the other staff, the director’s wife personally brings Emilie out of the kitchen and reinstates her on the hotel floor. Fredy and Speranza make up.