Ten Thousand Bedrooms

Ten Thousand Bedrooms
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Produced by Joe Pasternak
Written by Art Cohn
William Ludwig
Leonard Spigelglass
László Vadnay
Starring Dean Martin
Anna Maria Alberghetti
Eva Bartok
Music by Nicholas Brodszky
George Stoll
Robert Van Eps
Cinematography Robert J. Bronner
Edited by John McSweeney Jr.
Distributed by M-G-M
Release dates
  • April 3, 1957 (1957-04-03) (U.S.)
Running time
 114 min.
Language English
Budget $1,799,000[1]
Box office $1,705,000[1]

Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957) was Dean Martin's first movie in the wake of the dissolution of his partnership with Jerry Lewis in the team of Martin and Lewis. Filmed in Metrocolor and CinemaScope.

Plot

Millionaire hotel mogul Ray Hunter (Dean Martin) flies to Rome to buy another property, the Regent. He is picked up at the airport by lovely Maria Martelli (Eva Bartok), who works for the hotel's owner, the Countess Alzani.

Ray is reproached by the Countess for the impersonal way he buys up hotels this way, piling up "ten thousand bedrooms" and replacing employees without a second thought. He sincerely promises not to do so with the staff of the Regent.

Maria is impressed and volunteers to be Ray's translator while in town. He meets the Martelli family, including Papa Vittorio (Walter Slezak) and his other daughters. Maria's youngest sister, 18-year-old Nina (Anna Maria Alberghetti), takes an almost immediate liking to Ray.

Maria's current romantic interest is Anton (Paul Henreid), a poor Polish count who fancies himself a sculptor. Nina, meanwhile, tries to catch Ray's eye, while his private pilot Mike (Dewey Martin) is trying to catch hers.

Nina sees the sights with Ray and wants to marry him, so she asks her father for permission. Papa Martelli forbids it, saying in this family all of the eldest daughters must be married before the youngest can.

Ray tries to speed up that process. He sends for two eligible bachelors from America on the pretense of business. They are quickly introduced to two other sisters of Maria and Nina. But when he makes the mistake of buying Anton's artwork in order to make the poor count feel worthy of proposing to Maria, it backfires. Maria is furious and Ray apologizes with a kiss.

Suddenly realizing he is involved with the wrong sister, Ray is in a fix. At a party, Papa Martelli is rushed into saying Ray is engaged to daughter Nina, which upsets Mike so much that he decides to leave. Ray hurriedly urges Mike to stay and fight for the girl he loves.

It takes some doing, but everything finally works out. Ray finds a job for Anton that involves him traveling to Bombay for a long period of time. Meanwhile, he persuades Maria that he's sincere, and next thing you know, Papa Martelli is planning four weddings.

Cast

Actor Role
Dean Martin Ray Hunter
Anna Maria Alberghetti Nina Martelli
Eva Bartok Maria Martelli
Dewey Martin Mike Clark
Walter Slezak Papa Vittorio Martelli
Paul Henreid Anton
Jules Munshin Arthur
Marcel Dalio Vittorio Cisini
Evelyn Varden Countess Alzani
Lisa Montell Diana Martelli
Lisa Gaye Ana Martelli
John Archer Bob Dudley
Stephen Dunne Tom Crandall
Dean Jones Dan

Supervisors

Filming

Part of Ten Thousand Bedrooms was filmed in Rome in the spring of 1956 and the remainder was shot that autumn in Culver City.

Reception

According to MGM records the film earned $955,000 in the US and Canada and $750,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $1,196,000.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
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