West of Broadway (1931)

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Don't get me wrong. John Gilbert did a great job of acting in this one, because by the time it was over I was completely convinced he was the biggest heel in the history of the world. But then that seldom raises one's star, especially after you have been playing rather complex heroes for years, which is what Gilbert had been doing.Gilbert plays Jerry Stevens, returning from WWI, and all he wants to do is find and marry his girl, Anne (Madge Evans), the thought of which has been keeping him alive and going through his wartime experiences and his injury. But at first meeting she firmly tells him it is over and there is somebody else. Jerry drowns his sorrows in alcohol and escort services. One night while out on the town with one of these escorts, Jerry runs into Anne and her fiancé. Jerry, drunk and angry, introduces the escort (Lois Moran as Dot) as his fiancée. They find a JP who marries them that very night, and the next morning Jerry apologizes for getting Dot caught up in his personal problems and offers to make a big settlement on her in their divorce. The problem is, Dot is in love and refuses any money or any divorce. This is the point where Gilbert's character begins acting like an unredeemable heel. He insults her, calls her an outright prostitute, and just leaves his NYC apartment for his ranch out west to not only ditch Dot but stop drinking.Dot outsmarts him and follows him. The scenes out west are hard to watch with Gilbert being absolutely horrid to Dot, and Dot just letting him walk all over her like some bearskin rug. That may be why they brought the always likable and harmless El Brendel into all of this as Jerry's friend, so there is at least one character you cannot dislike. There are a couple of funny scenes - probably unintentional - where Brendel and Gilbert walk around dressed in the same western outfit, reminding me of a Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy short.In a very early film appearance there is a ranch foreman, Mac, played by Ralph Bellamy who takes a true liking to Dot and shows some contrast to Jerry by treating the girl like a lady. When Mac intervenes when Jerry (Gilbert) gets rough with Dot, Jerry fires him.Gilbert's character sinks to a new low though when shortly thereafter he seduces Dot, acts like he cares, and yet the next morning is STILL talking about divorce. But he has a consolation prize! He'll give her more money than he originally promised for the previous night's use of her private parts. Nothing makes a gal feel like a prostitute more than being treated like one. Well this is the final insult. Dot signs the divorce papers, and takes the next vehicle that comes by off the ranch and back to New York. But what's this? She tore up Jerry's check and gave it back to him? Why, she's a regular girl after all and Jerry goes back to New York begging her forgiveness. What happens? Watch and find out. If I'd been writing the script she would have put a shotgun shell right through his chest at next meeting, but that would ordinarily be murder IF the victim was human.There are several things that just seem odd in this picture. At one point Jerry's society friends all show up at the ranch to tell him that Anne has broken her engagement. They might as well be talking about the weather because Jerry - who is on this self destructive course in the first place because Anne left him - never reacts to this news at all.The other odd thing is that Jerry is supposed to be a severe alcoholic by the time he arrives at the ranch. Yet you will see Gilbert shaking sometimes as though he has the DTs when he is perfectly composed at other times. It makes you wonder how much of this is acting and how much of this shaking is Gilbert succumbing to his own alcoholism.I'd recommend it just as a head scratcher for the film history buff. Why would Gilbert do THIS film after playing a part that was just perfect for him in "The Phantom of Paris"?

"West of Broadway" is a fascinating movie for film buffs, an opportunity to watch two stars, John Gilbert and Lois Moran, who would soon vanish from the screen for totally different reasons. John Gilbert made "West of Broadway" after plummeting from silent screen stardom via a series of embarrassingly bad "talkies." The myth that it was Gilbert's high, squeaky voice that wrecked his career is palpably untrue. He had a rich, robust voice which he put to good use both in this picture and his dual role as a Houdini-like magician and a malevolent marquis in his other good "talkie," "The Phantom of Paris." But he couldn't overcome the hatred of Louis B. Mayer whom he openly ridiculed, a growing taste for booze and a heart condition -- and he died of cardiac arrest at the age of 39. Had he lived, he almost certainly would have found a second shot at stardom as a character actor. His co-star, Lois Moran, was also a silent screen player who'd made the transition to sound -- and made it splendidly. She was blithe, funny, winsome and charismatic. But she fell in love, married aviation pioneer Clarence M. Young, the assistant Secretary of Commerce under presidents Hoover and FDR, and "West of Broadway" was her last screen appearance for nearly 25 years. Otherwise, there's every likelihood that she'd have enjoyed a lusty career in screwball comedy. As for "West of Broadway," it centers on a wealthy young war hero who comes home, gets jilted, gets drunk, marries the first girl he meets and escapes to his ranch out west. That's where she shows up, smitten with him. Sure,the plot is pitted with potholes, but somehow Gilbert and Moran manage to make it remarkably entertaining and more than just a chapter in motion picture lore.

I was surprised at how much I liked this movie... It is so much better than I thought it would be, Gilbert is so handsome it's startling, he sounds great, the character is interesting and his co star Lois Moran, is charming. It has the feel of an early 30's style romantic farce, which it is , and I absolutely do not understand what people are talking about when they say this film is not good ...My interest is inborn, John Gilbert is my grandfather and until my mother wrote Dark Star after researching his life throughly, I knew little of him. I had never seen his films. I have seen most of them by now and am as much a fan as anyone. I know he must have suffered terribly towards the end of his career and life, but his films, silents and talkies, are simply wonderful to watch, even to a modern mind. As my mother points out in her lectures on his films, the silent film is an art form that stands on its own to the informed observer. Gilbert's talkies, including West Of Broadway are well worth watching.

You get the feeling this might have been a bigger picture. The tacked on ending ruins the preceding hour, which showcases John Gilbert, the great romantic idol of silent films. Certainly one of the most controversial figures of the dawn of talkies. Gilbert's great career crashed fast and fatally. His voice was fine, and he was a terrific actor. But he was never able to recover from the debacle of his starring talkie debut in His Glorious Night. Despite terrific performances in Downstairs and Queen Christina (with Greta Garbo) Gilbert made no headway as the 30s moved along. Several of his talkies were downright awful, but West of Broadway isn't bad at all despite the hacked up ending. Gilbert plays a cad who gets married to a woman because his fiancée jilts him. He then spends the rest of the movie trying to unload her. Lois Moran is quite good as the unwanted wife; Madge Evans is the snooty fiancée. El Brendel (playing his usual fake Swede) and Willie Fung as the Arizona houseboy have a funny scene trying to understand each other. Hedda Hopper, Ralph Bellamy, and Frank Conroy co-star. Gilbert was married to stage actress Ina Claire, who happened to be my grandfather's cousin, so I've always felt a connection to John Gilbert. What a tragedy. He should have been as big a star in talkies as he was in silent films.