Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer

A Collection of Eleven Modern Films

Winner of 2009 Il Cinema Ritrovato DVD Awards, Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer includes eleven of the joyful modern-dress comedies, westerns, satires, dream-fantasies and romances which, though mostly seldom-seen, made Fairbanks a tremendously popular hero. In addition to Fairbanks's unique talent, these ebullient films showcase his gifted collaborators including writer Anita Loos and directors Allan Dwan, Victor Fleming, and John Emerson.

Douglas Fairbanks came from Broadway to the movies in 1915 when high salaries were luring well-known stage actors to the new feature-length pictures. Although most of these performers failed to "register" on camera and returned to New York, Fairbanks quickly became a supernova. His energetic, optimistic character, his ingratiating smile, his graceful, acrobatic stunts (he did his own), clever writing, and accomplished staging rapidly made Fairbanks one of the most admired stars in the world.

Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer begins with 4 films from 1916 by Triangle-Fine Arts: His Picture in the Papers, The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, Flirting With Fate, and The Matrimaniac. The collection continues with 3 films produced by Fairbanks for Artcraft/Famous Players-Lasky Corp.: Wild and Wooly (1917), Reaching for the Moon (1917), and A Modern Musketeer (1918). The Last are 4 features Fairbanks produced for United Artists, a company he established in 1917 with Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith: When Clouds Roll By (1919), The Mollycoddle (1920), The Mark of Zorro (1920), and The Nut (1921).