Blown away

I've only just caught the last half of this on AMC and this movie blows me away. The essential humanity of some of the characters is so different from what we see now (no judgment here - I'm a Dexter fan). But the way the desperately broke baron still takes time to give poor Mr. Kringellein as good a time as possible; the anti-plutocracy bias that makes the industrialist a murdering clown; Flaemmchen's insistence on maintaining her "ladylike" mannerisms while entertaining her first john ... these people seem so real, so nuanced, so...human. The gorgeous hotel (those lobby tiles! the cafe sign!! the lobby staff uniforms!!!) - it's why I tuned in and it's ended up being just a bonus. What a movie.