Douglas Fairbanks
How can the masses be controlled? Apparently, the American publicist Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995), a pioneer in the field of propaganda and public relations, knew the answer to such a key question. The amazing story of the master of manipulation and the creation of the engineering of consent; a frightening true story about advertising, lies and charlatans.
A look back at Charlie Chaplin's early life and career, from his rough childhood and music hall success in England to his early Hollywood days and the development of his enormously popular character, the Little Tramp, also called Charlot.
This documentary traces the life and work of the legendary "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, silent film star, movie pioneer and keen businesswoman. Pickford's life also parallels an even larger story, telling of the birth of the cinema itself.
Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.
African filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo (YAABA) discusses the influence that Charlie Chaplin has been on his work, along with archival footage of interviews with several of Chaplin's co-stars.
A look at the parallel lives of Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler and how they crossed with the creation of the film “The Great Dictator,” released in 1940.
The true story of Mei Lanfang, China's greatest opera star; a husband and father whose world-wide fame came from the portrayal of women. His fascinating life was the basis for the feature film Farewell My Concubine.
The careers of D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin are chronicled culminating in the formation of United Artists and 1919.
The history of color photography in motion pictures, in particular the Technicolor company's work.
Noel Burch’s fascinating and well-made (if at times historically contestable) six-part BBC television series, about early silent cinema in Denmark, England, the Soviet Union, France, Germany, and the U.S., mixes beautiful clips of rare films with various social theories about their significance.
A documentary series examining the film making methods and techniques of Charles Chaplin. Featuring previously unseen footage from Chaplin's private film archive.
Ken Murray narrates his 16mm home movies shot over 35 years in Hollywood.
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
Three decades of fun packed into one convenient package with this compilation of classic black-and-white comedy clips featuring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy.
A collection of behind the scenes and home movies from the golden age of Hollywood.
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953.
Feature-length compilation of 1920s newsreel footage, with commentary about news, sports, lifestyles, and historical figures.
The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.
This 1940 presentation features highlights of earlier (1928 onward) Oscar ceremonies including Shirley Temple and Walt Disney, plus acceptance speeches for films released in 1939 with recipients and presenters including Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Fay Bainter, Mickey Rooney, Thomas Mitchell, Sinclair Lewis, and more, with host Bob Hope.
What do women want? Don Juan is aging. He's arrived secretly in Seville after a 20 year absence. His wife Dolores, whom he hasn't lived with in five years, still loves him. He refuses to see her; he fears the life of a husband. She has bought his debts and will remand him to jail for two years if he won't come to her. Meanwhile, an impostor is climbing the balconies of Seville claiming to be Don Juan.
Steve Drexel voluntarily strands himself on a deserted island on a bet. He intends to re-create civilization and carves a miniature city of 52nd Street and Park Avenue out of the jungle. Drexel is befriended by his dog, a native monkey, and a wild goat that is captured in one of his traps. He attempts to cultivate a native as his Man Friday from Robinson Crusoe, but fails as the native escape.
With the advent of sound, the world's leading screen idol, Douglas Fairbanks, experienced a downturn in his fortunes. His thin, reedy voice was not suited to the talkies, his marriage to Mary Pickford was on the outs, and his son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., had replaced him as a major box-office draw. Faced with the Hollywood equivalent of a mid-life crisis, Doug called up three of his best friends - director Victor Fleming, cinematographer Henry Sharp, and production manager Charles Lewis - and took them on a six-month tour of Asia, ostensibly to shoot a travelogue for United Artists (of which Fairbanks was still a major shareholder.) Their first stop is Honolulu, followed in quick succession by Japan, China, Peking, Hong Kong, Indochina, the Philippines, Siam, and India. Fairbanks and company spend time at such noteworthy spots as the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, the Summer Palace and the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum.
The House That Shadows Built (1931) is a short feature film, roughly 55 minutes long, from Paramount Pictures, made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the studio's founding in 1912. The film was a promotional film for exhibitors and never had a regular theatrical release. The film includes a brief history of Paramount, interviews with various actors, and clips from upcoming projects (some of which never came to fruition). The title comes from a biography of Paramount founder Adolph Zukor, The House That Shadows Built (1928), by William Henry Irwin.
Wall Street wizard, Larry Day, new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet. He follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails, laced with a "love potion," work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels he has also lost his girl.
King Louis XIII of France is thrilled to have born to him a son - an heir to the throne. But when the queen delivers a twin, Cardinal Richelieu sees the second son as a potential for revolution, and has him sent off to Spain to be raised in secret to ensure a peaceful future for France. Alas, keeping the secret means sending Constance, lover of D'Artagnan, off to a convent. D'Artagnan hears of this and rallies the Musketeers in a bid to rescue her. Unfortunately, Richelieu out-smarts the Musketeers and banishes them forever.
Adapted from Shakespeare's play: Baptista Minola, a wealthy resident of Padua, is the father of Katherine and Bianca. The younger daughter, Bianca, is charming and has many suitors. But her father will not allow Bianca to be married until her older sister, who is notoriously quarrelsome and bad-tempered, is married first. When Petruchio comes from Verona to Padua in search of a wife, he hears of this situation, and he accepts the challenge of trying to woo and marry the ill-natured Katherine.
Peggy Pepper arrives in Hollywood, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things do not go entirely according to plan.
Carter DeHaven announces that he will perform a series of "impressions." For each we see him applying makeup and changing the combing of his hair or putting on a wig. When he tilts his head down during each supposed makeover, up pops the actual celebrity (Keaton, Lloyd, Arbuckle, Valentino, Fairbanks, Coogan) he appears to have been making himself up as.
A girl is saved by a miracle after she falls from a cliff in the Argentine Andes, and is blessed with healing powers. A shrine is built on the site, and a whole city grows around it, rich with gold from the grateful worshipers. Ruiz, an evil and sadistic general, captures the city, confiscates the gold, and closes the shrine. But the Gaucho, the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws, comes to the rescue.
Goga is a Russian man who has no luck with women. He has a chance meeting with Mary Pickford, and after she kisses him on the cheek, he becomes as irresistible as her.
Soviet girl has met Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford during their visit to Moscow in 1927 and dreams of going to Hollywood. She falls asleep and her dream comes to true.
A nobleman vows to avenge the death of his father at the hands of pirates. To this end he infiltrates the pirate band. Acting in character he is instrumental in the capture of a ship, but things are complicated when he finds that there is a young woman on board whom he wishes to protect from the threat of rape.
Don Cesar De Vega crosses swords with a vicious member of the Queen's Guard, and steals the affection of a young heiress. When the officer frames the young upstart for murder, Don Cesar fakes his own death and retreats to the crumbling ruins of the family castle he plots his vengeance.
Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.
Amid big-budget medieval pageantry, King Richard goes on the Crusades leaving his brother Prince John as regent, who promptly emerges as a cruel, grasping, treacherous tyrant. Apprised of England's peril by message from his lady-love Marian, the dashing Earl of Huntingdon endangers his life and honor by returning to oppose John, but finds himself and his friends outlawed, and Marian apparently dead. Enter Robin Hood, acrobatic champion of the oppressed, laboring to set things right through swash buckling feats and cliffhanging perils!
The young Gascon D'Artagnan arrives in Paris, his heart set on joining the king's Musketeers. He is taken under the wings of three of the most respected and feared Musketeers, Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Together they fight to save France and the honor of a lady from the machinations of the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.
Douglas Fairbanks impersonates a wealthy young Spanish noble who, in his proper person, is an indolent imbecile, the despair of his father and of his charming sweetheart. When he sallies forth a masked black figure on a black horse, the terrible Zorro, he rescues the oppressed and leaves “The Mark of Zorro,” a “Z” made with his rapier, on the oppressor of the weak.
An American who has lived much of his life outside the country returns to Arizona for the first time in years and encounters villainy.
A European prince is raised in America without knowing his true identity; he spends his time thrill-seeking, but his country needs him when a revolt threatens the crown.
Daniel Boone Brown is a pleasure-seeking playboy carousing around New York City without a care in the world -- that is, until he becomes the unwitting subject of a series of experiments at the hands of a sadistic psychiatrist. Through various means of control, the mad scientist drives Daniel to think he's losing his mind, but ultimately introduces him to the lovely Lucette.
A lost film. Teddy Drake, ( Douglas Fairbanks ) is a pleasure-seeking aristocrat who ends up expelled from his exclusive Fifth Avenue club for playing practical jokes and other rambunctious antics. He decides to reform his selfish ways and boards a train heading heading for the Southwest.
First episode of a series of reports on movie stars. Those seen include Douglas Fairbanks, Montague Love, Mary Miles Minter and James Kirkwood and various film studios.
Jerry Martin quits his dull job as a bank clerk and falls in with a band of hobos. He takes on the guise of Bachelor, the "king of the market," and finds himself pursued by dangerous men who are after the real Bachelor. *Only fragments are known to exist.
Cupid Angling is a 1918 silent film starring Ruth Roland and Albert Morrison, with walk-on appearances by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. It was the only feature film photographed using the Douglass Natural Color process.
A lost film. George Travelwell (Fairbanks), an American youth motoring in Morocco, discovers that the governor of El Harib (Frank Campeau) has seized a young American woman for his harem. Disguised as an inmate of the harem, George nearly wrecks the place while he rescues her. One thrilling incident follows upon the heels of another in their attempts to get away, and it ends with him setting one tribe against another, leaving them free to peacefully ride away.
A lost film. As described in a film magazine Exhibitors Herald on March 16, 1918: "a forest ranger known only as Headin' South (Fairbanks) goes forth in search of Spanish Joe (Campeau), a Mexican responsible for most of the treachery and outlawry along the U.S.-Mexican boarder. Headin' South gains quite a reputation as he goes along and finally believes himself worthy of joining Joe's band. in a whirlwind finish in which Joe is captured, Headin' South meets one of Joe's near victims (MacDonald) and falls in love with her."
A young man impersonates his best friend, and in doing so upsets the decorum at a stuffy family gathering and falls in love. The arrival of a gang of hoodlums further disrupts the formalities, but our hero thwarts them and saves the day.
A lost film. "The Young Fellow"(Fairbanks), has recently been hired as a cub newspaper reporter for the New York Herald. His editor tasks him with unearthing "the facts concerning a scheme to defraud a group of minor stockholders in the town of Melford. Unless certain papers in the possession of an old bachelor(Neill) are delivered to a board meeting, the villainous financier(Campeau) will win complete control of a local company, and the stockholders will lose their investments. The Young Fellow enlists the help of his spinster landlady(Chapman) and the old bachelor's beautiful secretary(Daw) to thwart the evil millionaire.
In order to find out who's behind a cattle rustling operation that's hurting ranchers, a detective for the Cattleman's Protective Association pretends to be a tenderfoot from back east who's just arrived in the area and doesn't know how to ride, rope or shoot.
A young man drowns his sorrows in strong drink when jilted by his girl. His drunkenness gets him thrown in jail, where he falls in love with the jailer's daughter. When released, the young man tries everything to get back into the jail - though when he is mistaken for an anarchist bomber, he finds himself facing not just jail, but execution.
A factory worker has always dreamed that he was meant for better things, to be rich and famous and in "the company of kings". One day he discovers that he is indeed the only heir to the throne of a small European kingdom. However, there are forces at work who don't want him to survive to take the throne.
Short film with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford & W.S. Hart promoting war bonds.
A healthy outdoors-type follows the girl he loves to a resort for wealthy hypochondriacs. In order to prove to her and the other patients that their "illnesses" are all in their minds, he hatches a scheme to take them on a boat ride, then get them stranded in the wilderness, where he can show them that they can live without their pills, doctors and "cures".
A young man grows restless living in a small Kansas town, dreaming of the adventures of the Three Musketeers. So in hopes of becoming a modern D'Artagnan, he mounts his steed (a Model T Ford) and sets out across the West in search of excitement and adventure.
A rich young Easterner who has always wanted to live in "the Wild West" plans to move to a Western town. Unknown to him, the town's "wild" days are long gone, and it is an orderly, civilized place now. The townsmen, not wanting to lose a rich potential resident, contrive to make over the town to suit the young man's fantasy.
A young man can only get the woman he loves if he becomes famous and manages to get his picture in the newspapers. He determines to let nothing stand in the way of his doing exactly that, and in the process winds up getting involved with a gang of criminals and a locomotive chase.
In the midst of an emotional depression, a man hires a murderer to kill him. But the despair soon passes, and the man must now escape the killer he's hired to end his life.
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
A young couple attempts to elope, with the bride's irate father in hot pursuit. The train stops briefly and the young man dashes off to find a minister, but before he can get himself and the minister onto the train, it leaves, carrying his bride-to- be away. Now the young man, minister in tow, pursues his bride while her father and a horde of lawmen pursue them both.
Reggie, a wealthy young man about town, is eager for excitement, so he takes to visiting the rougher sections of the city in search of thrills. He meets and falls for a cabaret singer, but she turns out to be the inamorata of the local gang boss. The gangster sends his men after Reggie, but eventually it comes down to a duel between the two men themselves.
Coke Ennyday, the scientific detective, divides his time into periods of "Sleep", "Eat", "Dope" and "Drinks". In fact, he overcomes every situation with drugs: consuming cocaine to increase his energy or injecting it in his opponents to incapacitate them. To help the police, he tracks down a contraband of opium (which he eagerly tastes) transported within "leaping fishes", saving a "fish-blower" girl from blackmail along the way.
Steve O'Dare, a young New Yorker who has gone off to Wyoming to be a cowboy, returns to New York to sell some cattle. He bores his friends with tales of the exciting Western life, so they plot to trick him with a mock abduction. But although Steve falls for the gag, he ends up turning the tables on his friends.
Doug is an American mining engineer. Pres. Valdez of Paragonia wants him to reopen the country's mines. Doug is not interested ... until he sees the President's beautiful daughter, Juana. Valdez returns to Paragonia, but is deposed by Generals Sanchez and Garcia and locked in San Mateo Prison. The Americano arrives...
Douglas Fairbanks stars as "Sunny" Wiggins, who believes in eternal optimism and good spirits. This places Wiggins at odds with his staid, wealthy family, who decide to get even when he blithely invites a group of derelicts to his sister's coming-out party.
An outlaw calling himself Passin' Through halts his "evil" ways long enough to help out some children in difficulty.
In an attempt to brand himself as a serious actor, the smiling swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks starred in THE HALF-BREED (1916), a Western melodrama written by Anita Loos and directed with flair by Allan Dwan. Fairbanks stars as Lo Dorman, who has been ostracized from society because of this mixed ethnicity - his Native American mother was abandoned by his white father. When Lo catches the eye of the rich white debutante Nellie (Jewel Carmen), he becomes a target for the racist Sheriff Dunn (Sam De Grasse), who wants to break them up and take Nelli for his own. This love triangle becomes a quadrangle with the arrival of Teresa (Alma Rubens), who is on the run from the law. Through fire and fury Lo must decide who and what he truly loves.
A young man fights to overcome a piratical arms smuggler and to win the heart of a rich man's daughter.
Double Trouble is a 1915 American silent romantic comedy film written and directed by Christy Cabanne and stars Douglas Fairbanks in his third motion picture. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Herbert Quick. A print of the film is held by the Cohen Media Group.
Gerald, the somewhat frail son of a wealthy New York family, is bested at the beach by Bill, a strapping young cowboy from Arizona. His fiancée Mary, ashamed of Gerald's "yellow streak", leaves him and goes by train to visit some friends in Arizona, with Bill in tow. Gerald follows them, and before long he and Mary winds up captured by Yaqui Indians and Gerald must prove to Mary that he is not the "weakling" she thinks he is by coming up with a plan for them to escape their captors.
Our Mutual Girl was unique. Not quite a serial, not quite a newsreel and not strictly an advertisement, it combined elements of all three. In 52 weekly one-reel episodes, running from January 19, 1914 to January 11, 1915, the Mutual Girl outwitted villains, saw the sights of New York, met with theatrical and political celebrities (who frequently helped her out of trouble) and tried on fashionable outfits in chic stores. The fashions were an early example of product placement, although apparently not paid placement.
