'Gentleman's Fate' feels like it was based on a play, but apparently wasn't. Fortunately, the lengthy indoor verbal expositions that pass for action are in the hands of two forceful star personalities neither of whom were long for this world, of whom this film is thus of value as a record. Louis Wolheim died of cancer just days after it was released, while John Gilbert was one of the talkies' most high-profile casualties and a serious alcoholic, but much better in his early talkies than legend would have it. The ill-fated Marie Prevost (who also drank herself to death) brings sass to an amusing supporting role (and Leila Bennett too has a funny bit as a counter attendant who's just run out of coffee).
This convoluted tall tale rather resembles Pip's discomforting discovery in 'Great Expectations' of the true source of his wealth, when whitebread millionaire playboy Jack Thomas (Gilbert) discovers that his money comes from not out of thin air like most movie heroes of the era were accustomed to but from the very physical world of bootlegging, that his name is actually Giacomo Tomasulo and that he has Wolheim for a brother! (We're told that Mama Tomasulo had wanted this income to enable him to "become someone", but he doesn't seem to have been doing much with his life, getting up at noon every day while living off Papa's ill-gotten gains.)
Under the capable direction of the up and coming young Mervyn LeRoy and atmospherically photographed by Tod Browning's regular cameraman Merritt Gerstad it all passes the time satisfactorily enough.
This convoluted tall tale rather resembles Pip's discomforting discovery in 'Great Expectations' of the true source of his wealth, when whitebread millionaire playboy Jack Thomas (Gilbert) discovers that his money comes from not out of thin air like most movie heroes of the era were accustomed to but from the very physical world of bootlegging, that his name is actually Giacomo Tomasulo and that he has Wolheim for a brother! (We're told that Mama Tomasulo had wanted this income to enable him to "become someone", but he doesn't seem to have been doing much with his life, getting up at noon every day while living off Papa's ill-gotten gains.)
Under the capable direction of the up and coming young Mervyn LeRoy and atmospherically photographed by Tod Browning's regular cameraman Merritt Gerstad it all passes the time satisfactorily enough.