Another TCM Alert for you.  August 24 will be devoted to John Gilbert so you can see his most celebrated triumphs as well as the rarities.  The TCM lineup provides a fascinating study of a genuine legend's artistry and how the waning years of his career did a lot to obscure his contributions.

 

John Gilbert was one of the screen's most dashing figures.  He paved the way for subsequent stars like Errol Flynn, Robert Taylor, and Clark Gable.  With a flair for romantic period pieces, he wore his costumes like Fred Astaire wore his tux -- custom fitted but never confining to graceful or casual movement.  Gilbert's acting was intimate, but sent out a radiance that filled the screen and reached the fluttering hearts of his audience.  He was a man's man and a ladies' man.  A tragic figure with a glorious past.

 

Anyone who's read my blog has noticed the frequent postings about Gilbert.  Is it overkill?  Maybe.  But if you've never seen one of his great films, then my work is not done.

 

Here's a breakdown of the films being shown:

 

 

THE BUSHER (1919)
Gilbert is not the lead male here.  Instead, he plays the town's richest son wooing Colleen Moore away from nice boy Charles Ray, a minor league ballplayer trying to make it to the big league.  Although he doesn't get much screen-time, I delight in how much of a jerk Gilbert gets to be and how genuinely cranky he is at being ultimately foiled.  He had comic ability that wasn't played often enough once he became known as the screen's Great Lover.


HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1924)
This is another film in which Gilbert doesn't get much screen time and plays a supporting role to another male lead.  In this case, it's Lon Chaney, serving up his patented lonely, self-sacrificing, profoundly suffering anti-hero  -- a clown who loves Norma Shearer but must give her up to a younger, more beautiful male specimen.  The film allowed Gilbert to be seen with a big star like Chaney and endear himself to audiences as a romantic figure.


THE MERRY WIDOW (1925)
Sigh...Gilbert is the dazzling Prince Danilo who gives up his true love Mae Murray because of royal family pressure, only to drown his bitterness and regret in drinking and living recklessly.  The years of 1925 and 1926 marked the height of Gilbert's career.  He shot to super-stardom with THE MERRY WIDOW, made his most artistically fulfilling film in THE BIG PARADE, and fatefully met the elusive Greta Garbo whom he would most famously woo on and off the screen.


THE SHOW (1927)
I have to admit that I haven't seen this one yet, so I'm looking forward
to discovering it during the TCM marathon.  It reunites Gilbert with Renee Adoree, his paramour in THE BIG PARADE.  Gilbert plays Cock Robin, a carnival show performer and Adoree is Salome the dancer.  It's directed by Tod Browning who specialized in tales of the strange with films like THE UNHOLY THREE (1925), DRACULA (1931), and FREAKS (1932). 

According to Leatrice Gilbert Fountain's bio of her father, THE SHOW was trashy stuff, undeserving of Gilbert's star stature.  It was the beginning of many low-grade productions thrown Gilbert's way and gives evidence to MGM's ability to desecrate their talent as much as they also cultivated them.


DESERT NIGHTS (1929)
This was John Gilbert's last silent film before moving on to talkies.  It's a short film just coming in a little over an hour, but James Wong Howe's photography is atmospheric and the storytelling doesn't need to be blown up any bigger than it already is.  Gilbert manages diamond mines in Africa.  He's taken hostage by a scheming pair of thieves and must outwit them to recover stolen diamonds and survive the brutal desert conditions.  Check out my ode to Gilbert's DESERT NIGHTS performance in a previous posting ("If Rhett Butler Wasn't Rhett Butler").


WAY FOR A SAILOR (1930)
When MGM wanted to punish Clark Gable, they loaned him out to the less
prestigious Columbia Pictures.  There he was obligated to make a little
movie called IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) and he ended up winning his only Best Actor Oscar.  The same serendipitous good fortune did not happen to John Gilbert. 

Following the failure of his first two talkies, Gilbert had something to prove.  WAY FOR A SAILOR is about three buddies set adrift after their
ocean liner takes a permanent dip.  To play one of the three buddies,
MGM cast Jim Tully -- a Vanity Fair writer who tore Gilbert apart in print and then very publicly decked Gilbert with one punch when the latter was hotheaded enough to confront him.


GENTLEMAN'S FATE (1931)
In this gangster fillm, Gilbert's father is a bootlegger who dies a violent death.  Gilbert takes on a rival gang and tries to get his brother out of the racket.  I haven't seen this one, but it's an early effort from director Mervyn LeRoy whose credits cover LITTLE CAESAR (1931), I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932), RANDOM HARVEST (1940), LITTLE WOMEN (1949), and GYPSY (1962).


THE PHANTOM OF PARIS (1931)
This one is also new to me.  Gilbert is a magician-detective who can escape from chains and handcuffs like Houdini.  He's wrongly accused of killing his true love's father.  Escaping from the police, he determines to prove his innocence.  Of Gilbert's talkies, this is counted among the best.


DOWNSTAIRS (1932)
This is an important film for Gilbert.  He wrote and stars in it and his character isn't a hero.  It's a dark comedy about what goes on upstairs and downstairs in a Viennese household.  Gilbert is the chauffeur who romances like a cad and exploits the family secrets to his advantage.  The film was directed just as Gilbert hoped.  The added bonus to an already satisfying production was that Gilbert fell in love offscreen with his co-star Virgina Bruce.  She would become his fourth wife, but the marriage only lasted a couple of years.


THE BIG PARADE (1925)
Of all his films, this is the one John Gilbert would want audiences to remember him for.  Directed by King Vidor, it's an unflinching look at the devastating power of war to turn ordinary lives upside down and brutally rob them of their youth, dignity, and faith in humanity.  At the same time, it's a wonderfully intimate film that gives weight to the WWI doughboy experience.  In the Frank Borzage tradition, ordinary lives are made extraordinary by their struggle to find love and to save themselves.


BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT (1926)

Following their mega-hit THE BIG PARADE, Gilbert and director King Vidor made this swashbuckling romance.  It contains one of the best escape-from-the-gallows sequence ever and should not be missed.  There's also a much-admired love scene filmed with our couple reclined in a boat with cascading willowing branches around them.  Captivatingly beautiful.

 

 

FLESH & THE DEVIL (1926)
Although THE BIG PARADE is more meaningful to cinema history, I would venture to say that FLESH AND THE DEVIL is the one most people and future generations will remember John Gilbert by.  It introduced him to Garbo and electrified the public imagination immediately.  Even now when you view it, you are privy to the intensity of glamour and sexual frisson between the stars.  The photography by William Daniels ensures there is artistry in every frame and that magic of a suspended breath when you see something utterly beautiful.


QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933)
This is seven years after Gilbert and Garbo first smoldered in FLESH AND THE DEVIL.  Offscreen, Garbo has left Gilbert waiting at the altar once too often.  Onscreen, Garbo's legend has extended into the talkies while Gilbert's star has hit bottom.  But despite the years and the disparity, Garbo compassionately campaigns for Gilbert to be her romantic lead for QUEEN CHRISTINA.  She has her way and MGM allows the casting, but the movie does Gilbert no favors.
 
Director Rouben Mamoulian builds up Garbo's masculine charisma as the queen who strides in thigh boots.  Gilbert's role, on the other hand, is limp and poses him as effeminate.  He appears too thin, his facial hair is a little too dandy, and in the duel that would claim his character's life, he appears to have succumbed all too easily.

Still, the movie is fascinating when compared to FLESH AND THE DEVIL and how it fits in the Garbo/Gilbert legend.  The final goodbye between the lovers onscreen is eerily touching.


THE CAPTAIN HATES THE SEA (1934)
Gilbert is a newspaperman who tries to sober up on a cruise and write a book.  This was Gilbert's last film.  By this point, he'd been worn out by his constant battles with MGM for better films.  He'd endured failed marriages and love affairs.  His health was compromised by heavy drinking and he was suffering from ulcers and fevers. 

Gilbert began the film, attempting sobriety offscreen.  But the film's cast included some other heavy drinkers and Gilbert eventually joined in the social imbibing.  Harry Cohn, who was producing the film, commented that not only was the cost of the film staggering, but so was the cast.


Related Posts:
* "John Gilbert in THE BIG PARADE" (May 23, 2010)
* "Souls Made Great: Borzage, Gaynor & Farrell" (February 16, 2010)
* "John Gilbert in THE MERRY WIDOW" (January 20, 2010)
* "John Giblert in BARDELYS" (January 9, 2010)
* "If Rhett Butler Wasn't Rhett Butler" (September 30, 2010)
* "Why Movies As Old As Granny Are Sexy - Part 1" (August 25, 2009)
* "Star Quality: John Gilbert" (July 25, 2009)