The Silent Movie Adventures of Douglas Fairbanks

Early 1920s Films: Mark of Zorro, Three Muskateers, Robin Hood

Oct 21, 2008

Fairbanks' agility and athleticism as an actor has since been matched by only a few leading men.

In a relatively brief film career that lasted two decades, Douglas Fairbanks played in 49 movies, was a director, screenwriter, producer, and along with D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, and Mary Pickford, was one of the founders of United Artists. His sixteen year marriage to Pickford made them the first Hollywood celebrity couple.

However, Fairbanks, who started out in movie comedies, is best remembered for the dashing, acrobatic, often wry and roguish heroes that he brought to the screen in a series of films in the 1920s. He is also noted for doing most of his own stunt work that included often dangerous feats.

This film set in the Spanish California of the early 1800s features Fairbanks as the somewhat unmanly Don Diego Vega and his alter-ego, Zorro, a one-man sword-wielding army waging war against the corrupt government. His trademark is a “Z” slashed into his enemies’ clothing or, occasionally, on their skin.

The acting, particularly by Fairbanks, is on the hammy side and the plot is hard to follow unless the viewer is familiar with the original story. However, Doug has a good time in playing D’Artagnan, the young dreamer who wants to prove that he is worthy of becoming a musketeer,

Fairbanks had played the same character in A Modern Musketeer (1917) and would do so again in The Iron Mask (1929).

Fairbanks was at the top of his form in this lavish epic film that was one of the most heavily budgeted movies of the 1920s. Among his notable stunts are when his Robin Hood leaps from a parapet and rides an enormous tapestry thirty feet or more to the ground and climbs up the chain of a closing drawbridge to the top of a castle wall.

The three hour movie also includes a lengthy Crusades “prequel” that provides a background for the story.

In this piece of cinema magic, a roguish, self-centered thief (Fairbanks) goes on a fantastic journey in order to win the hand of a princess. His odyssey literally takes him from the bottom of the sea to the heavens above and results in his redemption.

This Arabian Nights spectacular was the perfect fit for Fairbanks. His flamboyant and sometimes over the top acting, his physical skills, and exuberance were a perfect fit for this movie, one of the great epic films from the 1920s.

Fairbanks plays a nobleman who, after his father is killed in a pirate raid, plans revenge by becoming the Black Pirate. His adventures, naturally, also include rescuing a beautiful Spanish princess. The movie has little plot but plenty of action and, like many of Fairbanks’ other films, is still fun to watch.

The film also has two notable distinctions. It was one of the first feature length films, if not the first, to be done in a Technicolor format which, although crude, is still pleasant to the eyes. And, allegedly, it contains one of the few times in Fairbanks’ career where he was not allowed to do his own stunt. This is a scene where the hero slides down a sail by slitting it with a dagger as he goes along. It was considered too risky even for the great daredevil.

Douglas Fairbanks was a performer with somewhat limited acting ability. However, he was truly the prototype for the “swashbuckling” characters later played by such actors as Errol Flynn in the late 1930s and 1940s and by Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones series. Amazingly, like Ford sixty years later, Fairbanks performed most his own stunts in these movies when he was in his late 30s and 40s.

The copyright of the article The Silent Movie Adventures of Douglas Fairbanks in Classic Films is owned by John K. Davis. Permission to republish The Silent Movie Adventures of Douglas Fairbanks in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.