It is painful to see one of the greatest stars of silent film reduced to playing in this potboiler. The film is static, tacky and extremely talky (as were a lot of the earlier sound films where they seemed to believe that the sounds of actors voices took precedence over plot). The fate of John Gilbert is well known to those who are aficionados of early film and it is validated by this travesty. He was fighting for his cinema life and Mayer stuck him in the worst films that the studio could produce. A sad end for a brilliant star.
The cast in this fiasco does a mediocre job in support but it strains credibility to accept the unlovely Louis Wolheim as Gilbert's brother. The story involves Gilbert, a sophisticate, learning that he is the son of a gangster and takes up the wrong side of the law lifestyle with tragic results. The film ends rather abruptly with Gilbert's death by gunshot and roll the credits. Very unsatisfactory.
This film illustrates how the powerful movie moguls of early Hollywood could make or break their biggest moneymakers on a personal whim. Gilbert may have gone out with a whimper but that falling star left a beautiful trail in the history of film.
The cast in this fiasco does a mediocre job in support but it strains credibility to accept the unlovely Louis Wolheim as Gilbert's brother. The story involves Gilbert, a sophisticate, learning that he is the son of a gangster and takes up the wrong side of the law lifestyle with tragic results. The film ends rather abruptly with Gilbert's death by gunshot and roll the credits. Very unsatisfactory.
This film illustrates how the powerful movie moguls of early Hollywood could make or break their biggest moneymakers on a personal whim. Gilbert may have gone out with a whimper but that falling star left a beautiful trail in the history of film.