Longe da Broadway

One of the great controversies in cinema history is the fall of the greatest male Hollywood star of the silent era, John Gilbert. Since the old suspicion, that it was merely his voice being too high pitched for the microphone, was definitely disproved when scrutinized several decades ago, the question since has been: Did he jump or was he pushed?

It took more than one nail in his coffin to bury John Gilbert's career. WEST OF Broadway was certainly one of the nails. The question becomes: was the incompetence of WEST OF Broadway deliberate and one of a series of career sabotaging moves made by Louis B. Meyer, or was this just another run of the mill bad movie put out during the changeover to sound. It has been pointed out that one surefire way to wreck a career, or least pound one nail in the coffin, would be to have Lionel Barrymore direct your picture. He was that bad a director and he directed Gilbert's disastrous first talkie, HIS GLORIOUS NIGHT.

The question is would Meyer have deliberately wrecked his own property as revenge on a man who hit him and knocked him down? And while we know the studios had the knowledge of how to build a personality into a star (witness the careful grooming at this time of Clark Gable by Irving Thalberg) were they knowledgeable enough to destroy one deliberately?

The facts about WEST OF Broadway aren't very pretty. The director was veteran, top drawer hack Harry Beaumont. Though Gilbert's reputation was made as the great lover, idolized by millions of women, the main character of WEST OF Broadway, Jerry Seevers, is a bitter and disagreeable man who accidentally marries a woman who loves him and he spends the whole film insulting, rejecting and abusing the woman who comes back for more with a sweet smile on her face. He is cold, cruel and hurtful. Women seeing this, however the denouement is engineered to a happy ending, would have to be turned off. Instead of worshiping Gilbert, women could but despise him. The fact that Seevers is a war hero just sucks all of the life out of Gilbert's great triumph in THE BIG PARADE (still the best war movie ever made). While destroying one Gilbert legend WEST feeds into a new Gilbert legend, that of the self destructive drunkard. Besides being a cold bastard in this picture he is also a nasty drunk. Not a pretty picture. When we finally do get to the ending and the fade out clinch we don't actually get to see the great lover do his stuff. Instead the camera tilts down to capture a piece a business with their feet and legs. This would have been a super cute ending in a light hearted Lubitsch picture but as this picture deals in alcoholism, prostitution, divorce and infidelity it may not be such a good idea. Not showing the great lover actually planting one on sweet pretty little Lois Moran was not a good career move. Meyer couldn't have concocted a better career snuffer than WEST OF Broadway if he tried. The only nagging suspicion is that he did try. No one can prove anything one way or the other but speculation will go one until proof is found one day.

On the other hand WEST OF Broadway is beautifully photographed and the bloodlines of the scriptwriters suggest a project that had been considered as a top picture but whose plot problems couldn't be solved and had been reduced in importance to a 68 minute programmer and unloaded on Gilbert. The plot is rather perfunctorily disposed of all too quickly moving from New York to Arizona and back again. No effort, not the slightest effort, is made to establish any period ambiance. Pre prohibition 1919 is virtually identical to the 1931 of the picture's release including an anachronistic reference to flying from Chicago. WEST OF Broadway was something of a showcase for newcomer Ralph Bellamy who, unlike Gable, didn't catch on as a star. The studios had a method in all this madness. MGM was certainly careful not to allow any of their more valuable properties - e.g. Harlow, Crawford, Sherer etc. near the sinking S.S. Gilbert. Gilbert may have been too oblivious from drink to notice or care at this point but more likely the ego inherent in every actor would have been stimulated to assay a role of a bitter, self destructive man with the DT's so he probably actively participated in his own eclipse as a star.

WEST OF Broadway is interesting today because it's another station on John Gilbert's Via Delarosa and is a typical example of the brief pre-code period of Hollywood openness, an openness which would soon close up not to be returned to until the 1960's.

An alcoholic millionaire heads WEST OF BROADWAY to his Arizona ranch to shake off the paid date he married during a drunken binge.

According to cinematic legend, all the talkie MGM films starring John Gilbert were dreadful - the result of a bitter hatred between Gilbert (the highest paid star in Hollywood, with a $1.5 million contract) & studio boss Louis B. Mayer. A determination on Gilbert's part to fulfill the contract, and a campaign instituted by Mayer to destroy Gilbert's career - including spreading the rumor that Gilbert's voice was `high & feminine', culminated in several unwatchable movies.

Not entirely true. The Studio had a huge financial investment in Jack Gilbert and was not going to completely cut its own throat by showcasing him in nothing but dreck. However, of the 8 MGM talkies in which he appeared as solo star (1929 - HIS GLORIOUS NIGHT; 1930 - REDEMPTION; WAY FOR A SAILOR; 1931 - GENTLEMAN'S FATE; THE PHANTOM OF PARIS; WEST OF BROADWAY; 1932 - DOWNSTAIRS; 1933 - FAST WORKERS) most were certainly rather ghastly. WEST OF BROADWAY, however, was quite decent, and, indeed, fully representative of the material the studio was producing in 1931.

Gilbert gives a dignified performance, with the occasional flash of talent that shows what he might have been capable of had MGM worked harder to give him better material. He is given excellent support by pert Lois Moran, who puts real honesty into her portrayal of a poor girl who grabs her only chance of happiness.

El Brendel, popular dialect comedian of the period, gets some much needed laughs out of his pseudo-Swedish role, although his bizarre tickling sequence with house boy Willie Fung is sure to raise a few eyebrows. Lovely Madge Evans as the woman who jilts Gilbert, Ralph Bellamy as a noble cowboy, Hedda Hopper as a society snob & Gwen Lee as a floozy all do well with their supporting roles. Movie mavens will recognize an uncredited John Miljan as an obnoxious cad.

The film is helped immensely by outdoor location filming during the ranch scenes.

Finally, about The Voice. There was nothing at all strange or unnaturally high about Gilbert's voice. As a matter of fact, it was of medium range & rather cultured & refined. Which was the crux of the problem, of course. While it is possible that no voice could have ever matched the perfect one viewers heard in their minds while watching his strong, virile silent roles, the reality was very different from what they wanted to hear (imagine Robert Montgomery's voice coming out of Clark Gable's mouth.) Gilbert was doomed from his first scene in his debut talkie; his war with Mayer only intensified the agony. He would die in 1936, forgotten by most of his former fans, at the age of only 36.

I'm always leery about a plot that begins with a drunk marrying a girl for almost no reason, only to find out the next day what a mistake it was. And the plot gets worse as people seem to behave without reason. I couldn't believe a minute of the film. (Preview audiences laughed at the goings on.) Still, it is a good film to watch if only to dispel any myths about Gilbert's voice being the cause of his demise as a star in the sound era. His voice is not high-pitched or squeaky (which I had heard) but is rather strong, low-pitched and quite good. You could see he still was an excellent actor. Beautiful Lois Moran was excellent as Gilbert's co-star; I wondered why she virtually quit making movies after 1931. There was one comedy scene I liked, with El Brendel and Willie Fung speaking their broken English and trying to understand each other. Otherwise, even the comedy relief, mostly supplied by El Brendel, was pretty bad.

West of Broadway (1931)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A rather strange drama from MGM about Jerry Seevers (John Gilbert), a man returning from WWI where he was injured and the doctors give him just six months to live. He spends most of his nights in a bottle but things start to change when he "orders" a woman (Lois Moran) and the two are married while he's drunk. At first Jerry wants a divorce but the woman has fallen in love with him and plans to break him from alcohol. If you know anything about this era of Hollywood then you know the legendary stories of Gilbert who was given bottom of the barrel roles at MGM and you've probably heard about his horrible talking voice. If you've actually seen any of the pictures from this era you're going to realize that they really aren't as bad as their reputation and there's really nothing wrong with Gilbert's voice. Is WEST OF Broadway a forgotten masterpiece? Not even close but it's certainly a lot better than its reputation would have you believe. I think the biggest thing going against the film is that the Gilbert character never really gets fully developed. When he meets the young woman he's kind as can be but of course he's drunk. He sobers up the next morning and turns into a complete jerk and I must admit that I never really bought this difference in him and it's really never explained. The entire bit about him dying is only occasionally brought up and at times you wonder if the screenwriter simply forgot about it as it comes in and out of the story without too much logic. The film works better than it probably should due to the two leads and their chemistry together. Whether it's the early cute stuff, the more dramatic moments or the predictable "turn" in the story, the two stars are completely believable in their parts and especially when they're working together as this troubled couple. I thought Gilbert was pretty strong playing the alcoholic and especially in the scenes where he's battling the addiction. The supporting cast includes a wasted Ralph Bellamy playing a cowboy, El Brendel, Madge Evans and Hedda Hopper. The story really doesn't contain anything too original or ground-breaking but it's worth viewing due to the performances and that it does actually look at alcoholism in a serious manor, which wasn't always the case with Hollywood. It's funny that this dramatic look at Hollywood would help finish off the career of Gilbert while another silent legend in D.W. Griffith would have his career end the same year with THE STRUGGLE, another film taking a serious look at alcoholism.

This picture features John Gilbert who appears to have suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from WWI, and then marries Lois Moran on the rebound while drunk. She then pursues him across the US to prove she really loves him. El Brendel, "Swedish", not Hispanic as you might suppose from the name, is featured as ethnic comic relief. Perhaps more interesting for latter day viewers is the question of what was so charismatic about John Gilbert to silent screen audiences. While his acting (and voice) is adequate, it's certainly not outstanding, and while handsome, his appearance is leading-man ordinary (does anyone else think his nose is too big when seen in profile?).