Grandhotel Pupp

Grandhotel Pupp is a luxury hotel located beside the River Teplá at the southern end of the spa district in Karlovy Vary, Czechia. The hotel traces its origins to 1701, when the Saxon Hall was built as one of the city’s first major social venues. During the 1770s, confectioner Johann Georg Pupp and his wife Franziska acquired the neighbouring Czech Hall, establishing the family business that gradually expanded across the site. The present monumental hotel complex was largely created during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with its Neo-Baroque main building officially opened in 1894. Grandhotel Pupp is also closely associated with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, hosting festival events, guests and celebrations.

Grandhotel Pupp has appeared in Waiter, Scarper! (1980), The Death of the Beautiful Deer (1986), Shanghai Knights (2003), Last Holiday (2006), Casino Royale (2006), La Vie en Rose (2007) and Nobel (2016). The hotel has appeared as itself and has also represented luxury hotels and entertainment venues in New York, Montenegro and Kabul.

In Waiter, Scarper! (1980), originally released as Vrchní, prchni!, Dalibor Vrána travels to Karlovy Vary as part of his scheme of posing as a restaurant waiter and collecting payments from unsuspecting customers. He enters Grandhotel Pupp and begins taking money from guests inside the Mirror Hall, but the real hotel staff become suspicious and realise that he does not work there. Dalibor is forced to abandon the attempt and flee as the waiters pursue him through the hotel.

In The Death of the Beautiful Deer (1986), originally released as Smrt krásných srnců, refrigerator salesmen Leo Popper and Jenda Hejtmánek arrive at Grandhotel Pupp hoping to secure an important sale. The exterior and main entrance are shown as the two men approach the prestigious hotel. The scenes supposedly taking place inside Grandhotel Pupp were filmed separately at Grand Hotel Evropa in Prague, making the real Pupp primarily the exterior identity of the hotel.

In Shanghai Knights (2003), parts of Grandhotel Pupp are used as the Ritz Hotel in New York, where Chon Wang finds Roy O’Bannon working as a waiter and part-time escort. The Mirror Hall and Grand Restaurant appear during the hotel material surrounding their reunion and the trouble that follows. Additional parts of the fictional Ritz, including sections of the large action sequence involving the hotel’s revolving entrance, were filmed at the nearby Imperial Spa rather than inside Grandhotel Pupp.

In Last Holiday (2006), Grandhotel Pupp appears as itself and provides the principal setting for much of the film. After being incorrectly told that she has only a few weeks to live, Georgia Byrd empties her savings and travels to Karlovy Vary to spend what she believes will be her final holiday at the hotel. She checks into the Presidential Suite, uses the spa, dines in the restaurant and meets her culinary idol, Chef Didier. The hotel’s lobby, rooms, restaurant, kitchens and ceremonial spaces appear extensively as Georgia befriends the staff and guests, confronts her employer Matthew Kragen and begins living without the fear and restraint that previously controlled her life.

In Casino Royale (2006), Grandhotel Pupp appears as Hotel Splendide in Montenegro, where James Bond and Vesper Lynd stay during the high-stakes poker tournament against Le Chiffre. Bond and Vesper arrive outside the hotel in a limousine before checking in at the real reception desk, where Bond deliberately reserves separate rooms despite their cover as a couple. The lobby, lift, corridors and rooms are used as parts of Hotel Splendide. After Bond wins the poker game, he and Vesper share a late-night meal in the Grand Restaurant. The area outside the hotel is later used when Bond discovers that Vesper has been abducted and races away in his Aston Martin to pursue Le Chiffre’s men. The casino itself was not inside Grandhotel Pupp but was represented by the nearby Imperial Spa.

In La Vie en Rose (2007), Grandhotel Pupp’s Festive Hall is used for the concert sequence that opens the film. Édith Piaf performs before a large audience in 1959 while already suffering from severe health problems. She struggles to remain standing and eventually collapses during the performance, after which the film moves backwards into scenes from her childhood. The hotel’s large ceremonial hall provides the ornate performance venue for this late stage of Piaf’s life.

In Nobel (2016), interiors of Grandhotel Pupp represent a luxury hotel in Kabul. In episode 7, Norwegian Special Forces soldier Erling Riiser becomes involved in the security operation surrounding a politically important meeting at the hotel. The meeting is interrupted by a terrorist attack, bringing Erling back into the violence and political conspiracy connected to his service in Afghanistan. The undamaged hotel interiors were filmed inside Grandhotel Pupp, while a replica of the lobby was constructed on a studio stage for the explosion and destruction caused by the attack.

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