Review - Wild and Woolly

December 3, 2023
 
Wild and Woolly – U.S., 1917
 

It seems strange to admit this, but for most of my time spent watching movies, the career of Douglas Fairbanks had been a blind spot. Sure, I had seen The Thief of Bagdad, but that had been as an avid fan of Anna May Wong, not as one eager to discover one of film’s first superstars, and subsequently, I did not pursue Fairbanks’ other films. My curiosity was eventually piqued by a plot summary of his film The Half-Breed and by Bosley Crowther’s inclusion of Fairbanks’ Robin Hood in his 1967 book The Great Films: Fifty Golden Years of Motion Pictures. While neither of those films earned rave reviews from me, his performances in them were enough to rope me in.
 
John Emerson's Wild and Woolly was Fairbanks’ seventeenth film, and while already a star, he had yet to make the swashbuckling, heroic films that would ultimately make him a legend. However, he was well on his way to establishing himself as a romantic superhero. Just a year earlier, in The Matrimaniac, he (and a reluctant priest) had gone through a series of physical challenges just to be able to marry the love of his life over the objection of her traditional father (a common theme in early silents), and his role in Flirting with Fate had audiences awe-struck upon seeing his physically challenging attempts to elude a hit man he’d regrettably hired to whack him. It may not always have made sense that his characters were suddenly able to do such acrobatic moves, but there’s no denying their impressiveness.
 
In Wild and Woolly, he plays Jeff Hillington, the son of Collis J. Hillington, who, in this film at least, was responsible for taming the Wild West with the railroad. In fact, the film begins with a series of comparisons between the West as it was in the olden days – replete with cowboys, shoot-ups, and wagons - and as it is today – “ruined” by technology. Jeff, we soon learn, has a massive obsession with the Wild West and his room is practically a shrine to the days he idolizes. It is here where he practices the “cowboy” skills he has so often seen romanticized in Hollywood movies (using real bullets!). At one point, he lassos the family butler and later offers some modern businessmen some of his tobacco block. He even looks at an actress on a poster for the latest Hollywood western and proclaims her the kind of woman he wants to marry. All of this gets him the reputation of being a nut.
 
Early scenes are fun, even though they make Jeff more akin to the kind of man-child that Harry Langdon played so often in his career than a full-fledged character who just happens to have an unusual interest. The film further stretches believability when it shows Jeff playing in his room alone atop a life-size toy horse with the same amount of energy as a genuine cowboy likely showed during an actual competition or stampede. As for how he acquired the impressive horseback-riding skills he later displays, we can only surmise that it has something to do with the fact that his father is extremely wealthy and that he appears to have a lot of free time on his hands.
 
The film kicks into high gear upon the introduction of two plot threads. The first involves a mine in a small Arizonan town that comes to the attention of Jeff’s father (Walter Bytell) and his decision to send Jeff to investigate it. The second has to do with the greedy schemes of a Caucasian Indian Agent named Steve Shelby (Sam De Grasse), whose nefarious activities have made him rich but wary about hanging around dodge too much longer. When word of Jeff’s impending arrival and his fascination with the West reaches the mining town, the residents decide to recreate those special times in an attempt to win his support for the mine (which, curiously, he never actually visits), while Shelby decides to use Jeff’s visit to pull off a final heist and then skedaddle out of town with a young lady named Nell (well played by Eileen Percy) who couldn’t care less about him, thus setting the stage for an actual western adventure. This part of the film is highly entertaining, as Jeff is an unsuspecting participant in a series of staged events right out of a movie screenplay, including a train robbery and the rescuing of a damsel in distress.
 
The film is of course a product of its time, and some contemporary viewers will likely object to what could be interpreted as stereotypical portrayals of nameless antagonistic Native Americans. However, I chose to see their role as the result of the unique circumstances of this particular tribe. It isn’t a stretch to conceive of their alcoholism and eagerness to attack the town as being the results of Shelby’s efforts to enrich himself at all costs, for what better way to bend people to one’s will than to deprive them of basic necessities and make them dependent on an addictive substance? Seen in this light, the only real villains are Shelby and his partner in crime, Pedro (Charles Stevens). Much less explainable is the exaggerated fractured English in the intertitles, again an unfortunate and distracting product of their time.
 
Still, as with many silent films, Wild and Woolly remains charming and entertaining, despite such elements. Fairbanks plays naiveté and innocence rather well, and his stunt work remains impressive. The cast seems to be having a ball in the scene in which the town stages events from the past, and Fairbanks and Percy are convincing as a pair of young people falling in love steadily. It is said that many silent films had musicians near the set playing music designed to help actors express emotions more clearly. For this film, I’ll bet it was Elger’s “Salut d’Amour.”  (on DVD as part of Flicker Alley’s box set Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer)
 
3 and a half stars
 
*Wild and Woolly is a silent film.
*Eileen Percy appeared in 72 films from 1917 – 1943. I look forward to seeing more of her performances.

Review - Robin Hood (1922)

 October 9, 2023
 
Robin Hood – U.S., 1922
 

It is said that the script for Douglas Fairbanks’s 1922 film Robin Hood consisted of just a few sentences scribbled on a piece of scratch paper. While I imagine scenes were more carefully planned out later on, the lack of foreplaning may account for the jarring sudden shift in tone midway through the film. After all, this is a film that for more than an hour seems much more like a drama than a comedy. It’s as if halfway through production someone ran what they had filmed so far and insisted on the insertion of humor and tights. So jarring is the switch that it makes you wonder if the man formerly known as the Earl of Huntingdon had suddenly developed amnesia regarding the degree of suffering being experienced by the residents of Nottingham.
 
Robin Hood begins with a feast celebrating King Richard’s soon-to-be-embarked upon mission into the Holy Land, more commonly known as the beginning of the Crusades. This is presented as a cause for pomp and celebration and as the fulfillment a personal mission. Current students of history may watch this and roll their eyes, especially at the rather positive view of a historical figure who ordered the massacre of 500 unarmed prisoners, yet it’s also easy to believe that at the time many people considered not only the Crusades to be worth fighting but also the men going off to fight it to be heroes. King Richard (played by screen legend Wallace Beery) places Prince John (Sam De Grasse) in charge during his absence, andit is a mistake of astronomical proportions, as the prince quickly raises taxes, seizes household possessions when people cannot pay, reinstates execution, and tortures women who spurn his advances. It’s truly brutal stuff.
 
The first half of the film also contains the first meeting of Huntingdon (Douglas Fairbanks) and Lady Marian (Enid Bennett), and this is portrayed much less romantically as later versions. Instead of linking eyes and feeling the early pitter-patters of love, Huntingdon spies Prince John stalking Marian as she flees upstairs to escape his unwanted and potentially violent advances. After saving her from a potential assault, he is surprised by her humble and soft-spoken manner, and soon the two are gazing into each other’s eyes, theirs faces adorned with the kind of expression that enthusiastically whispers, “Can you believe this is happening to us?” It’s hokey, but it works.
 
Director Allan Dwan does an excellent job of building up the tension, cutting between scenes of Prince John’s increasingly belligerent nature and the men’s blissful ignorance of what is going on in their absence. Dwan plays up Marian’s innocence in a series of close-ups that reflect both the hopefulness of a someone in love for the first time and the naïve practicality of someone who believes that a few sound words of advice are all a tyrant needs to be able to change his ways. Dwan also knows how to film Fairbanks, and his camera is frequently placed at the ideal angle to capture Marian’s and Huntingdon’s torn expressions and looks of concern. I would also be remiss in my duties if I did not mention the impressive sets.
 
By the end of the first half of the film, one character is thought dead, while another is heartbroken and hell-bent of revenge. Perhaps this is why what follows felt so jarring. We suddenly see that Huntingdon has taken on the name of Robin Hood and become known for his habit of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Now there are a number of ways one could convey the commitment Robin feels both to help the people survive and to get revenge on Prince John. Unfortunately, Fairbanks and Dwan opt to make Robin Hood a character that leaps practically every other moment, stops and laughs mid-escapade, and grins while engaging in pretty deadly swordplay. In other words, he’s now a comic character in a swashbuckling adventure, the kind whose duels inspire both wonder and fun and fill you with amazement at the skills involved in his physical deeds, such as climbing up a long castle drape and fighting off gangs of Prince John’s men the way martial arts heroes do their legions of enemies. It can be argued that, seeing as how this is a Robin Hood film, the shift was necessary. However, the change in tone is too jarring, and it hurts the rest of the film.
 
As the Earl of Huntingdon, Fairbanks is simple amazing; as Robin Hood, while he certainly gives it the old college try, he’s less so. Sure, he does some remarkable stunts and impresses with his physical prowess, yet all of this comes at the expense of the film’s emotional pull. It is hard to remain concerned about the lives of a population living under a brutal regime, while simultaneously being asked to marvel at a character’s acrobatic wonders. Again, this is fault of the script, not the performers. This is not to say that the second act does not contain a certain level of charm, but it makes the film escapist rather than dramatic, something easily forgotten, rather than pondered on and analyzed. In the end, Robin Hood is two films – one cinematic and the other pure Hollywood, and I simply preferred the former. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Cohen Film Collection)
 
3 stars
 
*Robin Hood is a silent film.
*Playing Little John is none other than Alan Hale, better known as the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island.

Review - The Half-Breed

May 24, 2018

The Half-Breed – US, 1916

Douglas Fairbanks’ Hollywood career began in 1915, a year in which he appeared in three films. The following year he quadrupled this number, with two short films and ten feature films, one of which was D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, in which he played an uncredited role referred to as Man on White Horse on IMDB. While Fairbanks is now known mainly for his swashbuckling films from the 1920s, most of the films he made in 1916 were westerns, a genre that was thought to be an excellent format for silent films. One of these films was Allan Dwan’s rather audacious The Half-Breed.

In the film, Douglas plays Lo Dorman, the son of a Cherokee Squaw woman and a Caucasian man who didn’t stick around to take care of his son. Exiled from her tribe, Lo’s mother decides to leave him with a hermit naturist, an act which she refers to as “giving him back” to the White race. It’s a gesture that that is not appreciated, for Lo too grows up to be ostracized by both of his parents’ communities. This makes him one of those classic western characters that wander the continent in search of a place to call home and someone to love and accept him for who he is.

His journeys take him to the Township of Excelsion, a classic western town replete with sin, vice, and a few decent individuals – decent, of course, being in the eye of the beholder. We’re introduced to Pastor Winslow Wynn (Frank Brownlee), a man who reminded me of abolitionist Austin Stoneman from D.W. Griffith’s seminal film The Birth of a Nation. Like Stoneman, Wynn preaches tolerance and charity, yet may not be as free from prejudice as he would like to think he is. The preacher has a daughter named Nellie (Jewel Carmen), and she is the toast of the town. Crowds of men flock to her doorstep in hopes of being selected as the lucky one to walk with her to one of her father’s sermons. There’s also Sheriff Dunn (Sam De Grasse), another of Nellie’s suitors, and Teresa (Alma Rubens), the companion of a traveling medicine swindler. The drama comes when Nellie takes an interest in Lo, and her father, the sheriff, and, well, pretty much the rest of the town, take great umbrage.

Contemporary viewers will not be surprised at such a storyline, yet I imagine it was pretty daring in 1916, especially given the fact that the film was made a year after The Birth of a Nation. The film is also rather intrepid in its honest depiction of the dark side of the Wild West. In it, not only do we see evidence of prostitution and lawlessness, but we are also reminded of the ever-present threat of rape and of the dangers that obsession can bring. Teresa seems fully aware of this danger, and at key points she refers to men being leeches who are on the lookout for an opportunity to blackmail or ensnare a woman. In her face and reactions, we see evidence of a rather rough life, one in which men could be both guarantors of security, as well as perpetrators of injustice. As for Nellie, she seems oblivious to the dangers around her, preferring instead to bask in the adulation of her followers and judging their actions as sweet and harmless, remaining oblivious to the increasingly unhealthy fixation that some are developing for her.

The problem with the film is that it introduces so many storylines that is doesn’t have enough time to adequately wrap them all up. In fact, a key storyline involving the identity of Lo’s father is simply dropped, and the film’s love quadrangle never resonates as much as it should. Part of this is due to the film’s poor development of the relationship between Lo and Nellie, and while I was watching the film, I couldn’t help thinking that the film would have been better served by giving Teresa’s screen time to Nellie. I also couldn’t help but notice that Teresa’s rebellious spirit and her status as an outcast made her a much better match for Lo. However, I can’t fault the film for depicting Lo as being blind to that. After all, men have been drawn to the wrong women since the beginning of time.

Still, there is a lot to like about The Half-Breed. I liked Douglas’s depiction of Lo as being rather carefree on his own and extremely serious when faced with injustice and discrimination. I was also intrigued by Nellie’s rebellious nature. It’s possible to read her entire interest in Lo as being the result of her father’s disapproval of any relationship between them. The film sheds lights on the hypocrisy of some people who profess to be free of racism, only to falter when faced with the possibility of a family member actually taking their message of tolerance to heart. These are indeed imperfect people in a movie set in imperfect times. Sure, the narrative could be tighter, and with another thirty minutes, many of the film’s neglected or discarded story lines could have been more satisfactorily wrapped up. However, what we have is both fascinating and bold in parts, and that makes its faults rather easy to overlook. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Classics)

3 stars