Le nouveau chauffeur

Based on a story by none other than its lead actor, John Gilbert himself, and coupled with his distinctive performance, "Downstairs" shows what a fertile creative mind Gilbert had and what a loss it was that he self-destructed before he got a chance to get a second wind going after a career slump. Coulda happened to anyone. In any event, this wickedly decadent tale set in an Austrian country estate examines the interactions between upstairs (Reginald Owen as a baron and Olga Baclanova as his philandering wife), and downstairs, kicking off with the wedding of the head butler (Paul Lukas) to innocent young maid (Virginia Bruce) with Gilbert as the newly hired chauffeur who shows up at the reception. Right off the bat he is revealed as a slick weasel. When a countess at the reception (Hedda Hopper) recognizes him she loses her cool in such a way that we know there was some hanky-panky in their history; when guests line up to kiss the bride Gilbert delivers a seriously inappropriate lip lock and later arrives uninvited to the newlyweds' bedroom to continue the dalliance while the husband is momentarily absent. And that's just for starters. In fact, the unmitigated rottenness of Gilbert's character borders on camp but is somewhat justified artistically the way the whole thing wraps up (something I won't reveal here).

For Gilbert to have written this character and then played him must have taken guts. Long after his loathsomeness has been established, we are treated to an extended scene in which he clips his nose hairs and picks at his ears and fingernails. He has the chiseled sexy good looks, cultivated speech and dapper sartorial sense of a worldly gentleman but the physical manners of a vulgar lout: he has a habit of lolling on table tops and indiscriminately gulping liquids and wolfing down food wherever he finds them. These two sides of his nature fuel the volatility of his relationship with Bruce who resents his aggression but succumbs to his skillful lovemaking. She has a very effective angry monologue about this matter during a climactic confrontation with Lukas whose devoted, martinet-ish butler is the straight-arrow opposite of Gilbert. Lukas is at his best when he too is consumed with rage.

The downstairs Gilbert turns the tables on the upstairs crowd, playing by their own rules in his own way.

"Downstairs" opens with the wedding of servants Albert (Paul Lukas) and his new wife Anna (Virginia Bruce). The story was written by, and stars, John Gilbert as Karl Schneider, the chauffeur who never stays at one place too long. We learn at the wedding that he had been previously employed by "the Countess" (Hedda Hopper, in a small part). Throw in Reginald Owen as "the Baron" and you've got a story about the class differences, love, deceit, and intrigue, similar to the British series "Upstairs, Downstairs". Karl, the chauffeur, starts out as a suave, charming guy, but we quickly learn he isn't such a nice guy. There's also an interesting mix of accents here. Paul Lukas and "the Baroness" (Olga Baclanova) both have strong Hungarian accents. Reginald Owen is quite British, and both Gilbert and Bruce have pretty plain, flat American accents. Good story, good acting. Funny scene with Francoise, the drunk servant. Too bad Gilbert died so young - it all seemed to go downhill when he was dumped by Greta Garbo.

The reputation for this part of his career notwithstanding, this is another good John Gilbert talkie, and it's appropriately situated between the decent 'West of Broadway' from 1931, and the great 'Queen Christina' from 1933. Here he plays a manipulative and morally bereft chauffeur who has just been hired on the day when the head butler (Paul Lukas), a loyal and proper servant, is marrying a maid (Virginia Bruce). He wastes no time in brazenly kissing her on the lips in congratulations, but soon we'll see that he can also be much slyer than that. He uses information to his advantage, plays on emotions, and treats people badly when he can get away with it, always speaking in a refined way.

Whatever we think of Gilbert's character, and he certainly is a dastardly rogue, we have to admit that he must be devilishly good in bed. We can imagine him kissing the back of Virginia Bruce's neck when he talks about a mole there where she must like it, and also what he's referring to when he suggests her husband's sideburns must tickle her (gee, where that might happen?). After he successfully seduces her into sleeping with him when her husband's away, it's clear she's seen a whole new world. "There's a kind of way of making love that drives you mad and crazy, so that you don't know what you're doing," she says passionately to her husband in Bruce's best scene, later adding "You think you can make love in the same frozen way you do everything else," and "I thank heaven I found that there is something else. Something that makes you so dizzy you don't know what's happened and you don't care!" Wow! And it's fascinating to consider that Gilbert himself wrote the script, given the torrid affairs in his own love life.

The film being pre-Code allows for this and the other references to sex, including the lady of the house (Olga Baclanova) being taken to a secret tryst in the city, and Gilbert's character using and abusing the middle-aged cook (Bodil Rosing). Part of the seduction of the latter is having her wipe flour off his backside while he lays across a table and smiles at her, which was pretty funny. Just as importantly, being pre-Code allows for us to not have a clue how the film is going to end, and without spoiling it, I'll just say that it's uncompromised and a good one.

There are two dimensions of hierarchy in the film, one being masters and servants, and the other men and women. As to the first, it's a little nauseating when Lukas says as part of a speech revering those upstairs "You know, as servants we don't produce a living. It's done for us," and "Life downstairs is very simple, but up there, the rules are different." However, the film is effective in satirizing how uncaring, vapid, and hypocritical those "upstairs" really are, and we see that they are certainly not on some higher plane of existence.

Unfortunately, it's less successful relative to the women. It's not so much that they all fall under Gilbert's control one way or another, because it's believable that a master manipulator do that, even if some of Bruce's actions are a tinge surprising. Overall the film seems to have a paternalistic attitude, such as when she sighs and says "If I were a man, I'd just want to keep on traveling and traveling," or when Baclanova says "Women sometimes do foolish things, just for lack of understanding." Hats off to Bruce being sexually awakened and henceforth looking for more satisfaction in the sack, but these other bits aren't very liberated.

Overall though, a fine pre-Code vehicle for Gilbert and Bruce, who would marry in real life just four days after the film was released. It's such a shame that his health and personal life were spiraling towards doom, and that his reputation was so unfairly tarnished along the way.

"Downstairs" features a great cast (John Gilbert, Virginia Bruce, Paul Lukas) and many memorable, tension-filled scenes. Its plot is a strange combination of old-fashioned class-conflict melodrama (servants' lives compared to the aristocracy's) and sexual satire. I think it has held up well for its age, undoubtedly because it was a pre-code movie and could deal with subjects which only two years later were taboo.

This film and The Big Parade are my two favorite John Gilbert films. He was an under-rated actor, very attractive, polished, but with a sharp edge of naughtiness. His voice was quite pleasant and intriguing, only slightly nasal, but you rarely notice that. He obviously had training to lower his voice and make it more cultured, just like all the actors did who crossed over from silents to talkies. However his battles with Louis B and his declining health limited his roles soon after Downstairs to B pictures.

The most dramatic scene in the film however belongs not to John Gilbert, but to Virginia Bruce, whom I must confess is not a favorite of mine. After being seduced by John Gilbert's character she boldly and passionately tells her husband (Lukas) off and insults his lovemaking in comparison. Wow-sa for 1932! No wonder TCM showcased this scene in the pre-code movies special a few months back. However the TCM special didn't lay the foundation for the scene, because if we had it we would have naturally sympathized with the husband much more than the seducer or the wife!

Watch Downstairs if you enjoy the saucy John Gilbert or if you like pre-code movies. You'll enjoy it.

John Gilbert was the highest paid actor in Hollywood in 1929, the year silent films breathed their last. By 1933 he was through with movies and by 1935 he was dead. Lots of people believe bad things about him, mainly that he had a high squeaky voice or that he was a ham who couldn't adjust to talkies. In "Downstairs" he proves that both of these myths are false. The film is a splendid little drama--"little" being the only kind of movie MGM would cast him in by then--about a scheming chauffeur who blackmails or steals from practically everybody at the mansion he works at. Paul Lukas, years from stardom, plays the head butler, and Virginia Bruce (who married Gilbert in real life) plays the butler's new bride. The script and story are flawless, and Gilbert, playing very much against type, shines as the amoral chauffeur. "Downstairs" is a sophisticated drama that could not have been made a few years later after the censors cracked down on Hollywood, but more importantly, it is a testament to John Gilbert, who might have had a successful career in the talkies if he had been given a chance.