Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914)

Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin, Marie Dressler, and a Keystone Kop.

As the first feature-length comedy ever made, Tillie's Punctured Romance is of unquestionable historical significance. On top of this, though, it is surprisingly good, with a nicely articulated plot that, while it may not be interesting on its own dramatic merits, provides plenty of terrain for Keystone's finest to dig out the humor in their respective roles. Although Charlie Chaplin is featured prominently in Tillie, it would be a mistake to view this as a Chaplin film. It bears almost no similarity to Chaplin's later features, all of which he wrote and directed himself, and is very much a piece with the Keystone shorts of the mid 1910's.

His Majesty, The American (1919)

Douglas Fairbanks, looking rather pleased with himself.

His Majesty, The American***  was one of the last comedies Fairbanks made in the 10's, and also one of the most elaborate. The formula had hardly changed from his early Triangle Pictures releases: a robust and energetic young man must make his way (joyfully) through the world to win the hand of the girl of his dreams, through a series of contrived challenges that involve a lot of jumping and climbing on things. In this particular instance, the girl of his dreams happens to be his mother, who he has never met, but there's also a beautiful young princess on hand to fill the romantic gap this creates.

His Picture in the Papers (1916)

Douglas Fairbanks as Pete Prindle, looking for his name in the paper. It isn't there.

I generally find that I know more or less what to expect from a film before I see it. I may not know if I will like it or not, although I usually have a pretty good idea of that too, but seldom does a film surprise me as much as this one did. His Picture in the Papers is clever and original (what movie wasn't at least a little original in 1916?); it is quirky, unpredictable, and utterly charming, a tale of love, advertising, and vegetarian cooking. What more could you ask?

Wild and Woolly (1917)

Douglas Fairbanks as Jeff Hillington in his New York City apartment.

In Wild and Woolly, Douglas Fairbanks plays Jeff Hillington, the son of a New York railroad magnate. He is obsessed with the Old West. Certifiably obsessed. His home and office have been turned into vast playgrounds for his hobby. He has tee-pees, six-shooters, model horses, and enough campy wild west paraphernalia to fill the Fort Worth stockyards twice over. Everyone around him simply accepts that he's a bit of a nut, and they humor his fantasies enough to get by (he is the boss's son, and those six-shooters are loaded, after all).

The Films of Douglas Fairbanks: Introduction

Douglas Fairbanks

In the 1920's, Douglas Fairbanks was the biggest action star the world had ever known, but he got there in a round about sort of way. He started out in comedy, making simple “boy-meets-girl-but-then-something-gets-in-the-way-so-he-has-to-get-chased-all-over-town-and-perform-outlandish-stunts-before-he-can-marry-her” films, not unlike the Harold Lloyd thrill-seekers of the 1920's. Fairbanks’ comedies are all but forgotten today in favor of his better-known adventure films, but it was in comedy that he first established himself as one of the three most successful stars in Hollywood, along with Charlie Chaplin and Fairbanks’ own future wife, Mary Pickford. For several years, Fairbanks had become increasingly involved in the practical side of filmmaking, leading up to his co-founding of United Artists with Chaplin, Pickford, and director D.W. Griffith in 1919. When he made his first foray into serious action films with 1920’s The Mark of Zorro, Fairbanks was a well-established star of thirty-seven, and a full career reboot was the last thing anyone could have expected, particularly when this meant taking on projects of a scale and complexity that made them phenomenally more expensive than his earlier works. The Mark of Zorro was a hit, however, and Fairbanks never looked back. Over the next nine years he made a total of eight more costumed adventure films, cementing his reputation as cinema’s first (and arguably greatest) swashbuckler.