Based on a story by none other than its lead actor, John Gilbert himself, and coupled with his distinctive performance, "Downstairs" shows what a fertile creative mind Gilbert had and what a loss it was that he self-destructed before he got a chance to get a second wind going after a career slump. Coulda happened to anyone. In any event, this wickedly decadent tale set in an Austrian country estate examines the interactions between upstairs (Reginald Owen as a baron and Olga Baclanova as his philandering wife), and downstairs, kicking off with the wedding of the head butler (Paul Lukas) to innocent young maid (Virginia Bruce) with Gilbert as the newly hired chauffeur who shows up at the reception. Right off the bat he is revealed as a slick weasel. When a countess at the reception (Hedda Hopper) recognizes him she loses her cool in such a way that we know there was some hanky-panky in their history; when guests line up to kiss the bride Gilbert delivers a seriously inappropriate lip lock and later arrives uninvited to the newlyweds' bedroom to continue the dalliance while the husband is momentarily absent. And that's just for starters. In fact, the unmitigated rottenness of Gilbert's character borders on camp but is somewhat justified artistically the way the whole thing wraps up (something I won't reveal here).
For Gilbert to have written this character and then played him must have taken guts. Long after his loathsomeness has been established, we are treated to an extended scene in which he clips his nose hairs and picks at his ears and fingernails. He has the chiseled sexy good looks, cultivated speech and dapper sartorial sense of a worldly gentleman but the physical manners of a vulgar lout: he has a habit of lolling on table tops and indiscriminately gulping liquids and wolfing down food wherever he finds them. These two sides of his nature fuel the volatility of his relationship with Bruce who resents his aggression but succumbs to his skillful lovemaking. She has a very effective angry monologue about this matter during a climactic confrontation with Lukas whose devoted, martinet-ish butler is the straight-arrow opposite of Gilbert. Lukas is at his best when he too is consumed with rage.
The downstairs Gilbert turns the tables on the upstairs crowd, playing by their own rules in his own way.
