Fast Workers

Two steelworker buddies are real FAST WORKERS when it comes to romancing & dumping the women in their lives - until a loose lady with a shady past shakes up their complacency & threatens their friendship.

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.

FAST WORKERS was a sad end to Gilbert's MGM contract. Although it boosts some fine moments in the alarmingly vertiginous opening scenes atop a skyscraper (for once using decent rear projection), back on the ground it descended into turgid romantics which were a waste of the stars' talents. Unattractive & depressing, the film could easily be subtitled The Tawdry Lives Of Unpleasant People.

Gilbert was always trying to push himself as an actor, attempting to produce the best performance possible. But the script and the cheap production values gives him no assistance. It is to Mayer's eternal shame that the actor who was the most popular male star at the end of the silent era and who made a great deal of money for MGM, should be treated in such a shabby, humiliating way at the end of his career.

The film was also a Studio letdown for director Tod Browning, who had helmed several splendid silent Lon Chaney shockers and whose talkies included the classics Dracula & FREAKS. His career would soon spiral into obscurity.

Robert Armstrong and a funny Sterling Holloway offer fine support to Gilbert, as do Mae Clarke, Muriel Kirkland, pretty Muriel Evans and unbilled Herman Bing & Nora Cecil, but it's all to no avail. The picture was doomed & John Gilbert was out the door, his contract expired.

It must be stated that 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 were expecting (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.

At Garbo's insistence, John Gilbert would return to MGM later in 1933 to appear as her love interest in QUEEN Christina, but she was the star and Gilbert received below-the-title billing. He would make only one more film - THE CAPTAIN HATES THE SEA for Columbia in 1934. Then he retired to his villa to live a life of drunken, sybaritic obsolescence. He was planning to return to the screen to costar with his last lover, Marlene Dietrich, in THE GARDEN OF ALLAH when he suddenly died on January 9, 1936 of heart failure, forgotten by most of his former fans. John Gilbert was only 36 years old.

Snappy film that looks and feels like a Warners film, this MGM film bristles with sexual tension. John Gilbert is terrific as the construction worker who tangles with smart dame Mae Clarke and pal Robert Armstrong.

Gilbert had his problems at MGM with LB Mayer, but his talent shines thru the rotten films they assigned him. And this film is a perfect example. It's a B film about the loves and lives of menial workers but Gilbert makes it an event. He's confident, sexy, and terrific as the worker who falls into the clutches of a "working girl." The three stars are quite good. The supporting cast includes Herman Bing, Sterling Holloway, Vince Barnett, Bob Burns, Nora Cecil, and Virginia Cherrill.

As mentioned elsewhere, this film finished off Gilbert's contract with MGM. Mayer had done his best to ruin Gilbert's career by assigning him bad films, but Gilbert is really good in this film as well as THE PHANTOM OF Paris and DOWNSTAIRS.

"Fast Workers" is a mostly successful change-of-pace for "Dracula" and "Freaks" director Tod Browning. The story is a rather trifling love-triangle, but it is unapologetically pre-code, and leavened with humor. It is also set in a highly orginal work environment (the building of skyscrapers), and contains what must be one of the earliest movie-going sequences in movie history. The star trio is terrific, especially Mae Clarke who is modern in a Barbara Stanwyck-esque way. There is also an extremely idiosyncratic supporting performance by Sterling Holloway as.... Pinky Magoo, who always says the weirdest things. **1/2 out of 4.

One cannot help but wonder how this film could have been made, even at the height of the era of mass production at the Hollywood dream factory. It is frankly utterly boring and I had lost interest totally two thirds of the way through. It will be of interest only to scholars and film buffs tracking the demise of the career of John Gilbert. That was my reason for viewing it. The basic plot is implausible and there is too much talk and obscure dialogue. The direction is heavy handed and it appears as if the director considered it a chore. Browning was at his best with macabre/horror type films and he is all at sea here. If Mayer was intent on destroying Gilbert's career, then there is no better proof of evil intent than casting him in such a vehicle in his final role under contract to MGM. It could have been intended only as a second feature/programme filler. As a jazz follower I am convinced the leading black musician(uncredited) in the cabaret scene is Lionel Hampton, then totally unknown, who within a very short time became a leading figure of the swing era in the Benny Goodman Trio/Quartet and later a highly successful band leader in his own right.

Fast Workers (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Tod Browning directed film, which I'm going to guess will be my most shocking viewing of the year. Construction working buddies John Gilbert and Robert Armstrong spend the nightlife tracking down girls but Armstrong's got the habit of being hustled by the women. One night he meets one of these hustlers (Mae Clarke) but doesn't know what she's up to. Gilbert does know because he's seeing her on the side. I said this will be my most shocking viewing of the year because this film has one of the worst reputations of any film from the 1930s but I found myself really, really ejoying the film and getting completely caught up in its story. This is also rather shocking because I'm not that big of a fan of Browning's sound pictures. What really worked for me was the three stars who all give very good performances. I was really caught off guard by Gilbert because I had heard he wasn't that good in sound pictures but I found him very entertaining and charming here. Armstrong was very funny in his role and Clarke was giving several good scenes. This is a very strange film as it starts out as a comedy and then moves into a very mean spirited drama and then the director finishes it off like one of his horror films. A very strange film but I really enjoyed it. One of Gilbert's final pictures at MGM as he was to die three years later at the age of 36.