John Gilbert was on the skids both professionally and personally when he made Downstairs. Gilbert in fact came up with the idea and sold to MGM for a dollar and while he's quite good the rest of the production never gets above mediocre.
Gilbert plays Karl a devious but charming chauffeur who inveigles his way into the good graces of both the upstairs crowd as well as the downstairs servants. Completely self absorbed and callous he exploits all and any for personal gain and good times. He seduces Sophie the cook to give him her life savings and then moves on to the head butler Karl's new bride in hopes of getting her to run off with him to Vienna. He's fired but soon rehired by blackmailing the matron of the household.
Gilbert's sound era implosion is well documented and while he was still with MGM when he made Downstairs he had gone from sharing billing with Greta Garbo to being directed by Monta Bell in less than two years. As Karl though he gives a fine unsympathetic performance playing the outlandish cad to the hilt in one particular instance picking his nose and earwax and wiping it on his shirt as he tramples over the pathetic Sophie. The rest of the cast with the exception of Bodil Rosing's Sophie is uninspired and in the case of Paul Lukas' Karl the butler a stilted Bela Lugosi at his day job.
Monta Bell's direction has none and the film's haphazard finale married to the rest of the flaccid proceedings confirm this but a brief epilogue does evoke a chuckle or two.
Downstairs may belong in the basement as a film but it does offer concrete evidence that Gilbert was a more than capable sound actor. It was other demons that would bring it all to an end some three years later.
Gilbert plays Karl a devious but charming chauffeur who inveigles his way into the good graces of both the upstairs crowd as well as the downstairs servants. Completely self absorbed and callous he exploits all and any for personal gain and good times. He seduces Sophie the cook to give him her life savings and then moves on to the head butler Karl's new bride in hopes of getting her to run off with him to Vienna. He's fired but soon rehired by blackmailing the matron of the household.
Gilbert's sound era implosion is well documented and while he was still with MGM when he made Downstairs he had gone from sharing billing with Greta Garbo to being directed by Monta Bell in less than two years. As Karl though he gives a fine unsympathetic performance playing the outlandish cad to the hilt in one particular instance picking his nose and earwax and wiping it on his shirt as he tramples over the pathetic Sophie. The rest of the cast with the exception of Bodil Rosing's Sophie is uninspired and in the case of Paul Lukas' Karl the butler a stilted Bela Lugosi at his day job.
Monta Bell's direction has none and the film's haphazard finale married to the rest of the flaccid proceedings confirm this but a brief epilogue does evoke a chuckle or two.
Downstairs may belong in the basement as a film but it does offer concrete evidence that Gilbert was a more than capable sound actor. It was other demons that would bring it all to an end some three years later.