Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. The four powerhouses that founded United Artists in 1919 were indeed the royalty of early American film.
Director D.W. Griffith had pulled off the enormously influential (and controversial) smash hit Birth of a Nation in 1915, and was widely regarded as the father of movie technique. By 1920 his career had started a slow decline, as he struggled to remain ‘modern’ and current.
Charlie Chaplin was already famous around the world though he had yet to make the feature-length masterpieces he is most known for today.
Mary Pickford was the most beloved actress of the era, though her adoring public wanted to see her eternally reprising the little girl roles that had made her famous.
I will look at Griffith and Pickford a little more in upcoming posts (Chaplin made no new films in 1920). Today’s post is all about Doug.
Like Pickford and Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks was also an audience favourite. He and Mary Pickford fell in love while still married to other people, but their many fans did not disapprove, they celebrated the romance as a fitting union of Hollywood royalty. Cheering crowds mobbed the couple on their European honeymoon in 1920.
Douglas Fairbanks’ films are not often seen today, but I found his two films from 1920 to be very entertaining. That year was an important one for his career, as he made the switch from the contemporary boy-meets-girl comedies he’d built his career upon, to a genre that suited him even better (and for which he created the template for decades to come): the romantic-comic swashbuckling adventure.
The Mollycoddle is in the former camp, and is a very accomplished example of how he rose to fame through a potent mix of charisma, comedic chops and astonishing athletic ability.
It begins with a brief prelude in which we see our hero’s ancestors: a long line of rough and brave frontiersmen, always at the ready with fists or guns. Then we are introduced to the modern descendant of the line, an inoffensive, well-meaning but lightweight innocent swanning around Monte Carlo, sporting a monocle and cigarette holder, both signifiers of his European dandification.
He meets a rambunctious group of young Americans, and joins them on an excursion to the American west, where they become embroiled with diamond smugglers. In the process of rescuing his lady fair and her friends, our little dweeb shows surprising pluck, strength and agility, and handily saves the day.
It’s the usual trajectory for Doug in his early comedies, from laughable weakling to daring hero, the transition accomplished through his determination and desire to win the girl. This character arc was also used by Buster Keaton, the main difference being one of style: Keaton never smiled and Fairbanks never stopped smiling. Doug displays such verve and charm in every scene that the audience is squarely on his side, which makes his final successes all the more satisfying.
Also noteworthy in The Mollycoddle are the stunning Arizona locations and the scenes with Hopi natives, who are depicted respectfully. There is one good gag of Doug meeting an elder and trying to communicate with much miming and “ugga” talk…
… to which the fellow replies “What the hell you talking about?” Doug breaks into a big grin and actually gives him a hug.
Note that in this film Hopi are played by authentic Hopi, and not by white actors!
In the Hopi village Doug pals around and joins in a tribal dance, awkwardly but with lots of energy. The footage of the Hopi laughing at this Hollywood fool seems pretty unscripted and natural. It seems that the relationship between the filmmakers and the Hopi was friendly and positive. The opening title card for the picture thanks them for their help and generosity, although the words “savage” and “primitive” still make an appearance, testament to the prevailing attitudes of the time.
All in all, The Mollycoddle is still pretty entertaining, and worth looking up. My favourite title card has Doug remarking to Wallace Beery, who’s been roughing him up:
“You can drown me, but just stop slapping me!”
At the climax of the film Fairbanks and Beery have a long drawn-out punchup, which was probably intended as a sendup of a similar mountainside brawl Beery was a part of in The Last of the Mohicans, another 1920 release.
The Mark of Zorro retains elements of his earlier films, although as a period story it allows for more action scenes as well as exotic costumes and sets. He still gets to be a pathetic weakling here, although this time it’s just a cover for his true identity as the masked avenger Zorro.
In the former guise, as Don Diego, he is particularly funny, slouching and yawning, dabbing his forehead with a lacy handkerchief, and nearly fainting at the least suggestion of violence. When he meets the heroine, he tries to impress her with magic tricks.
She is completely underwhelmed, remarking to her parents: “He’s not a man, he’s a fish!”
Yet only moments later, with his Zorro mask on, Doug swings in to save her from the unwanted attentions of the captain of the guard. She is instantly smitten. In this scene Fairbanks is the very personification of panache, flinging a rose to her before swinging out the window to evade capture.
This kind of film was the perfect vehicle for Fairbanks’ athleticism, and there are moments I had to stop and watch again, just to marvel at his agility. He launches himself over tables, scales buildings, leaps from rooftop to rooftop, and generally outfences, outdodges, outruns, and outwits every foe. Humiliating them too, as much as possible along the way. Fairbanks is so smooth and graceful he’s just a pleasure to watch.
His two foes in this film cover both classic villain types: the blustery bungler is played by Noah Beery (Wallace’s brother), and Robert McKim plays the suave, dignified type that Basil Rathbone perfected in the Errol Flynn pictures.
One hundred years later, Douglas Fairbanks’ charm still plays perfectly in this very entertaining flick. Period adventure films had been falling in popularity until Fairbanks resuscitated the entire genre with this film. What really set him apart from previous costume picture romantic leads was the simple addition of humour – he refused to take himself or anyone else too seriously. He patented the devil-may-care laugh (hands on hips, wide stance) that served Errol Flynn so well in later years. So many of the tropes seen here are still in common use today: the mild-mannered cover identity (Superman), the girl falling for the masked hero over the everyday nerd (Superman!), the cheeky, smart-ass personality, the fights peppered with witty rejoinders, the humiliation of opponents, the quick laughter, the cape flip, the rose tossing, the sheer panache, the joy.
The Mark of Zorro was such a smash box office hit that Doug stuck mainly to swashbucklers – The Three Musketeers, The Thief of Baghdad, Robin Hood, The Black Pirate, The Gaucho, The Iron Mask, The Private Life of Don Juan – for the rest of his career, seemingly enjoying every minute.
Which was, in the final analysis, Douglas Fairbank’s secret to success: simply having fun.
