The Great Gatsby on AllMovie

Accurately described as "a beautiful job" by novelist John O'Hara, this 1926 silent version of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby stars Warner Baxter in the title role. Self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby lacks only one thing in life: the love of the beautiful, impulsive Daisy Buchanan (Lois Wilson). Gatsby's carefully laid scheme to announce his intentions to take Daisy away from her cloddish husband Tom Buchanan (Hale Hamilton) goes horribly awry, setting the stage for the inexorable tragedies that follow. Georgia Hale, previously seen as Chaplin's vis-a-vis in The Gold Rush, is cast as Buchanan's pathetic low-life mistress Myrtle Wilson, while Neil Hamilton exudes dependability from every pore as Gatsby's loyal friend Nick Carraway. Among Fitzgerald adaptations, the 1926 Gatsby was actually filmed during the historical period it depicts (which wasn't historical at all back then). The property was remade in 1949 with Alan Ladd, then again in 1974 with Robert Redford.