In 1936, Krakow’s Grand Hotel entered Polish literature for good thanks to the book titled “Zaklęte Rewiry” (The Enchanted Territories), which was received by the literary circles as an excellent debut by Tadeusz Kurtyka – a former waiter at the Grand Hotel, publishing under the pseudonym Henryk Worcell. He worked between 1928 and 1936 as a waiter, first in the café and then in the hotel restaurant. In 1933 he began writing his memoirs, which with time turned into a kind of autobiographical novel full of invaluable information and anecdotes concerning hotel life “behind the scenes ” to “the café table”. Undoubtedly, it was the Grand Hotel café that was the place where the waiter Kurtyka transformed into the writer Worcell, who, according to Zygmunt Nowakowski’s review, “rode into Polish literature on a hundred horses”. The most valuable features of Worcell’s novel were the vivid depictions of café and restaurant life from behind the scenes: “from the perspectives of kitchen, buffet, pantry and sideboard”. In the novel, the author called the Grand Hotel the “Pacific” (thus the English name of the feature film is “The Pacific Hotel”), and hid himself under the figure of the main character Roman Boryczko, who started his way to becoming a waiter from a position of dish washer in the kitchen. In real life, waiter Tadeusz Kurtyka, having the opportunity to observe the behaviour of café guests and participating in the daily operations of the Grand Hotel’s catering facilities, was able to convey the unusual atmosphere of the place and, in an interesting literary record, record the history of this legendary hotel. The book was reprinted many times and in 1975 Janusz Majewski made a film based on the book under the same title.

“Zaklęte Rewiry” (The Pacific Hotel) directed by Janusz Majewski is a faithful screen adaptation of Henryk Worcell’s novel of the same title. The director cast a young Marek Konrad in the lead of Roman Boryczko, and an excellent Roman Wilhelmi as the brutal waiter Fornalski who persecuted him. Both were awarded for their outstanding acting performances. For the purpose of the film, the Krakow’s Grand Hotel is renamed into Hotel “Pacific”. The director invites us to visit this hotel and take a look at its quarters, usually inaccessible to guests. The film is set in the early 1930s and tells the story of a teenage boy from the countryside who is hired to work in the restaurant of the city’s most luxurious hotel and climbs the hotel career ladder at the cost of constant humiliation. In an excellent way it presents a picture of the life of the Grand Hotel in Krakow, seen through the eyes of its waiter and based on his own experiences. It is an excellent study of the attitudes and behaviour of the hotel’s staff and regulars in the Grand Hotel’s cafés and restaurants. British film critic David Shipman expressed the opinion that “there is no better film about hotel life than this one”.

When the BBC presenter and host of the acclaimed programme “Great Continental Journey” arrived in Krakow, he could not fail to stop at the legendary Grand Hotel and add it to his script. The programme crew moved with the camera through the historic interiors of the Krakow’s Grand Hotel, trying to move their viewers back to the year 1914, when Joseph Conrad, his wife Jessie and sons: Boris and John stayed here and to revive the ambience of the place and the bygone era. It would be difficult to list all the programmes that were filmed inside the Grand Hotel, because the place has become so important in the history of our country and so many prominent representatives of the world of politics, culture and art have been connected with it over the years that it is difficult for the makers of these programmes to skip the Grand Hotel in their scripts.
The History Channel of the Polish Television visited our hotel many times with a camera, filming scenes related to various historical figures. One of the most interesting programmes shot by this station was a film attempt to recreate Jan Kiepura’s stay at the Grand Hotel in 1936 and his spontaneous concert in a bathrobe in the window of the Palace Suite for the crowd of admirers gathered in front of the hotel.