(Chronicles the stories of several characters on an ocean ...)
Chronicles the stories of several characters on an ocean liner en route to Europe. Keating and Vinson play a couple who have stolen bonds and are trying to outwit detective McLaglen. Gilbert plays an alcoholic, Gibson plays a girl whose past catches up with her, sending her husband into a jealous frenzy which gets him thrown into the brig.
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(Michael Caine narrates the story of Great Britain's only ...)
Michael Caine narrates the story of Great Britain's only film mogul J. Arthur Rank and the rise of his studio in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Rank Films. The Golden Gong tells of J. Arthur Rank's humble beginnings as a maker of religious short films and his rise as a producer of global blockbusters such as the James Bond films made at Pinewood Studios.
(To escape the burdens of rule, Sweden's Queen Christina r...)
To escape the burdens of rule, Sweden's Queen Christina rides into the countryside disguised as a boy. There she meets and secretly falls for a dashing Spanish envoy on his way to the royal court. Imagine the envoy's delighted surprise when he and the young "nobleman" must share a bed at an overcrowded inn. Greta Garbo gives a luminous performance in this lavish costume drama, starring with her one-time off-screen fiance John Gilbert and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. "It had been so enchanting to be a woman, not a queen. Just a woman in a man's arms," Christina murmurs to her lover when her true identity is revealed. But she knows her people will not accept her marriage to a foreigner. Torn between her duty and her heart, she must make a fateful decision.
(Fast Workers depicts the friendship between a pair of riv...)
Fast Workers depicts the friendship between a pair of riveters - Gunner (John Gilbert) and Bucker (Robert Armstrong), who keep themselves honest by stealing each other's girl. This practice goes terribly awry when streetwise grifter gal Mary (Mae Clarke) becomes the middle of their perpetual triangle. Director Tod Browning, better known for macabre masterpieces, delivers the goods with deft characterizations and a stunning eye for the dramatic in the film's skyscraper and speak-easy setting. He draws two superb performances from his leads, while the small cast of stellar secondary players cast a wide enough net to support the lead's high tension, hi-wire dramatics. Gilbert's entrancing portrayal of rogue Gunner shows that he was more than ready for sound while Armstrong's hapless Bucker should prove a revelation for audiences who best know him for his immortal performance as King Kong's Carl Denham.
When sold by Amazon.com, this product will be manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
(John Gilbert is cast against type as a rum-running gangst...)
John Gilbert is cast against type as a rum-running gangster in this riveting gangland saga directed by Mervyn LeRoy (Little Caesar). While planning his wedding to socialite Marjorie Channing (Leila Hyams), dashing playboy Jack Thomas (Gilbert) learns from his guardian that his real name is Giacomo Tomasulo, and that he's the son of a notorious racketeer. Pressured by his brother Frank (Louis Wolheim), the sibling he never knew he had, Jack gives up life among the swells and becomes a member of the gang. Dumped by his fiancée, Jack becomes an embittered hood, as his knack for the family business entangles him in bootlegging, murder and a rival mob's plan to bump him off for killing one of their own.
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(Hard-drinking New York socialite Jerry Seevers returns fr...)
Hard-drinking New York socialite Jerry Seevers returns from WWI combat and finds that his fiancée now loves someone else. Drunkenly, Jerry retaliates by marrying party girl Dot. But the next morning he wants out of his vows and flees west to his Arizona ranch – only to find that Dot has arrived there before him. Can her love win out over his weakness for booze? John Gilbert, whose silent-screen prominence and subsequent career crash after the advent of sound is one of Hollywood’s most legendary rise-and-fall tales, plays Jerry. A notable cast joins him, including Lois Moran as Dot, Madge Evans as the fiancée, plus Willie Fung and ex-vaudevillian El Brendel (some of the bits and attitudes involving the latter pair can be charitably described as being of their time). But the story’s center, of course, is Gilbert in a pre-Code portrayal that gives classics fans the chance to judge for themselves his talents as an actor in Talkies.
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(An escape artist (John Gilbert) attempts to clear his nam...)
An escape artist (John Gilbert) attempts to clear his name after being convicted of murder in this imaginative mystery thriller based on the novel Chéri-Bibi et Cécily by Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera). When the father (C. Aubrey Smith) of the woman he loves (Leila Hyams) is murdered by the Marquis Du Touchais (Ian Keith), society magician Chéri-Bibi (Gilbert) is framed, convicted and sentenced to death. Escaping from his prison cell, Bibi confronts the ailing Marquis, who admits to the crime, but dies before he confesses. Disposing of the body, Bibi disguises himself as Du Touchais in a daring attempt to win back his woman by proving the Marquis's guilt.
When sold by Amazon.com, this product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
John Gilbert was an American actor, screenwriter and director.
Background
Gilbert was born John Cecil Pringle on July 10, 1897 in Logan, Utah. He was the son of Ida Apperly, a local beauty and accomplished elocutionist who, to the sorrow of her father, Prof. William H. Apperly, had joined a traveling company of actors when they played in Logan. His father was John Pringle, an actor in the company. As in many a melodrama, the girl returned to the old homestead to have her child, and John Cecil Pringle spent his earliest years in Logan. He later joined his mother in the theatre, and when she married the actor Walter B. Gilbert the boy acquired the name under which he was to become famous. When he was about fourteen his mother died, and for the next few years he lived in Portland, Oregon, where his stepfather was stage director of a local stock company.
Education
After sporadic earlier schooling, Gilbert finished high school at the Hitchcock Military Academy in San Rafael, California.
Career
For a time Gilbert went into business, becoming a salesman for the Goodrich Rubber Company. At seventeen, however, he joined a stock company in Spokane, Washington, and next year (1915), by his own account, he made his first movie appearance as an extra in one of the productions of Thomas H. Ince. Within a few years he was a man of all work around the studios, playing small parts at the Triangle Company and working as director, cutter, prop man, and set carpenter at the Goldwyn Studios and others. In 1918 he was well enough known to be signed by the Vitagraph Company to play opposite the popular Bessie Love. That year he entered the army, and after his discharge Gilbert resumed his picture career, assisting the distinguished director Maurice Tourneur and writing and directing at least one film, Love's Penalty (1921). He seems then to have been signed to an acting contract by William Fox. From 1922 to 1924 he was the obscure and nominal star of such routine Fox productions as St. Elmo, Cameo Kirby, and Romance Ranch. With his removal from Fox to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, however, in 1924, Gilbert's luck changed. Irving Thalberg, executive producer at M-G-M, brought him increasingly to public notice in important films like His Hour (1924) with Aileen Pringle, The Merry Widow (1925) with Mae Murray, and La Bohème (1926) with Lillian Gish. In 1925 he scored his greatest personal triumph in the notable war drama The Big Parade, one of the greatest box-office successes in movie history. When he was "teamed" with Greta Garbo in Flesh and the Devil (1927), Love (1927) - a version of Anna Karenina - and A Woman of Affairs (1929), after Michael Arlen's The Green Hat, their on-screen love-making and putative off-screen romance created a national sensation. After the death of Rudolph Valentino in 1926 there was no one to dispute Gilbert's place as the leading romantic idol of the screen. As his long service in unimportant films attests, the camera at first revealed nothing striking in his physical appearance. But success gave him confidence and magnetism. His piercing eyes, flashing teeth, and dynamic manner especially fitted him for romantic and adventurous roles, though he was equally acceptable to his army of feminine admirers in realistic dramas such as Twelve Miles Out (1927), Four Walls (1928), and Masks of the Devil (1928). Thoroughly acquainted with every aspect of the making of pictures through his long and varied service in them, he was both respected by and popular with his colleagues. For four years he stood at the top of his profession. Early in 1929, as the screen was converting to sound, Gilbert's contract was renewed for seven films at a reputed $10, 000 a week, a reasonable investment in view of his box-office record. His first talking picture, Redemption (after Tolstoy's The Living Corpse), was shelved after completion as "unsuitable, " and he was instead put into Ferenc Molnar's Olympia, filmed as His Glorious Night (1929). High hopes for its success were entertained. The release of His Glorious Night revealed what had previously been known only to studio executives, that Gilbert was entirely inadequate in the talkies. His reading of the perfervid dialogue in love scenes was by turns florid and wooden. His feminine admirers, who had yearned over his love-making in silent pictures, laughed openly at His Glorious Night. At first it was hoped that the poor impression Gilbert had made was due to mechanical defects in recording which could be corrected as sound reproduction improved, and that casting him in melodrama rather than in romantic roles might serve to restore his reputation. After an interval of more than a year the "new" John Gilbert was launched in a virile sea drama, Way for a Sailor. The film only confirmed the general feeling that Gilbert was, in Hollywood parlance, "washed up. " Convinced of the futility of further experiment, the studio heads sought release from their contract by offering Gilbert the full salary it called for. The star insisted that the agreement be fulfilled to the letter. The motion picture world was then treated to the extraordinary spectacle of the production and distribution of five not inexpensive films which few exhibitors would book, which fewer movie-goers wanted to see. At the conclusion of his long, disheartening chore, Gilbert acknowledged defeat and sought work as a writer and director. Then, suddenly, in 1933, M-G-M re-signed him to play leading man to Greta Garbo in Queen Christina (1934), reputedly at the instigation of Miss Garbo. Thereafter Columbia, then the boneyard of fallen stars, featured him in an "all-star" production, The Captain Hates the Sea (1934). His remarkable performance as an alcoholic scenarist indicated that, while he might have no future in romantic roles, he could still play character parts with all his old artistry. But neither picture attracted further offers, and Gilbert was idle in Hollywood for two years. Early in 1936, still only thirty-eight years old, John Gilbert died at his home in Beverly Hills of a heart attack. His ashes were buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.
(Michael Caine narrates the story of Great Britain's only ...)
Connections
Gilbert was married four times. His first marriage, on August 26, 1918, was to Olivia Burwell, a native of Mississippi whom Gilbert had met after her family moved to California. They separated the following year. In February 1921, Gilbert announced his engagement to actress Leatrice Joy. They married in Tijuana in November 1921. In August 1924, Joy, who was pregnant with the couple's first child, filed for divorce. Gilbert and Joy had a daughter, Leatrice Gilbert (later Fountain; 4 September 1924 - 20 January 2015). Joy was granted a divorce in May 1925. In 1929, Gilbert eloped with actress Ina Claire to Las Vegas. They separated in February 1931 and divorced six months later. Gilbert's fourth and final marriage was to actress Virginia Bruce in August 1932. They had a daughter, Susan Ann, the following year before divorcing in May 1934.