Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer
Douglas Fairbanks came to the movies in 1915, when high salaries were luring well-known stage performers to the new feature-length productions. Although most of these performers failed to “register” on camera and soon returned to New York, Fairbanks quickly became a super-nova. His energetic, optimistic character, his ingratiating smile, and his graceful, acrobatic style rapidly made Fairbanks one of the most admired stars in the world. By 1917 he had established his own production company; in 1919, along with Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith, Fairbanks formed United Artists Corporation.
Douglas Fairbanks came to the movies in 1915, when high salaries were luring well-known stage performers to the new feature-length productions. Although most of these performers failed to “register” on camera and soon returned to New York, Fairbanks quickly became a super-nova. His energetic, optimistic character, his ingratiating smile, and his graceful, acrobatic style rapidly made Fairbanks one of the most admired stars in the world. By 1917 he had established his own production company; in 1919, along with Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith, Fairbanks formed United Artists Corporation.
This Five-Disc DVD collection includes eleven of the delightful modern-dress comedies, westerns, satires, dream-fantasies and romances which made Fairbanks a popular hero, before he launched into the costume spectacles for which he is best remembered. The common theme of these films can best be expressed by “Doug” himself: “There is one thing in this good old world that is positively sure – happiness is for all who strive to be happy – and those who laugh are happy.”
Included are Flirting With Fate, The Matrimaniac, His Picture In The Papers, and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916, produced by Triangle); Wild and Woolly, Reaching for the Moon and A Modern Musketeer (1917-18, produced by Fairbanks for Paramount/Artcraft); and When The Clouds Roll By, The Mollycoddle, The Mark of Zorro and The Nut (1919-1921, produced by Fairbanks for United Artists). Almost all have been digitally mastered from 35mm or original-negative sources, with music scores created for these editions by Eric Beheim, Philip Carli, Frederick Hodges, Robert Israel, the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra and Franklin Stover. A Modern Musketeer, long thought to survive only as a fragment, is finally complete in a new restoration by the Danish Film Museum and with an optional audio essay by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta. The Mark of Zorro is digitally re-mastered from an original 35mm fine grain. Both of these films have new orchestral scores by Rodney Sauer and Mont Alto. There is a bonus gallery of very rare stills from Douglas Fairbanks’ personal collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a brochure featuring an essay by Jeffrey Vance, author of Douglas Fairbanks (University of California Press, 2008).
A 5-DVD Set
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Stills gallery containing over 40 images from Fairbanks’s personal collection courtesy of the Douglas Fairbanks Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
- Original pressbook materials from His Picture in the Papers, Wild and Woolly, Reaching for the Moon, A Modern Musketeer, The Mollycoddle and The Nut courtesy of Jeffrey Vance, who has also written a new essay for this collection.
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Classic
CollectionUPC: 6-17311-67409-9
ISBN: 1-893967-40-9
