(1921, Ted Reed) Super-organized Greenwich Village bachelor Doug automates his morning rituals, but things go haywire when he entertains potential backers of a social welfare scheme: quick-change impersonations are botched (climaxed by the real Chaplin being kicked off-stage), wax figures ignite, and fireworks explode, in the star’s zany farewell to the contemporary satire – made in case the new swashbuckling Doug flopped. He didn’t. Plus Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916, John Emerson) Doug’s detective Coke Ennyday – the screen’s most happy-go-lucky drug fiend ever – speedily tracks down that mystery, scaling heights of pre-surrealist surrealism. Fairbanks’ most bizarre picture is a wacky forerunner of Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.
Approx. 85 min. 35mm.

REVIEWS

top

“Like a chaotic funhouse, filled with magical masquerades, illusions, and gimmicks of great momentary amusement.”
– Jeffrey Vance

“[Fairbanks is] less of the acrobat and more of the comedian”
– Variety (1921)