The Nut

The Nut was a mildly fun, meandering and overly long movie. It starts very strong with clever title cards, some unusual situations, and lots of the Fairbanks personality. Doug is a wealthy inventor whose sometimes clever and sometimes odd devices get plenty of attention. He loves Estrell (Marguerite De La Motte), a wealthy woman who wants to save all of the poor slum children from poverty by placing them with wealthy families.

When it starts to wander away from the main story, and I lost interest in this film. If you're a big fan of the Fairbanks personality, it might see you through but I found it to be tedious. When the story finds its way back to the fold, it is almost too late, but there are a few laughs in between and a sufficient ending.

Douglas Fairbanks so embodied the ideal young American male of his day: honest, gallant, athletic, charming, and perhaps anti-intellectual. Ideas didn't propel him in the movies (though he's a clever inventor in this one), action did. In this transitional silent feature, he still has the light-comedian identity that made him a star in the 1910s, but he's doing more stunts and working his way toward the action-hero persona that propelled him through the 1920s. The trouble here is, in the title role, he really is a nut--callous and deceptive toward his girlfriend, impractical in all things, and incapable of learning anything. The villain, William Lowery, is a good one, a handsome charmer whose perfidy is convincing, and there are also glimpses of United Artists allies Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford in a party sequence. But, as another poster notes, it's never certain whether it's an actioner or a comedy, and Fairbanks doesn't even look his best. And I know we have to suspend a lot of disbelief with these silent comedies, but I'm surprised to learn from this film that 1) wax dummies can persuasively impersonate real human beings for extended periods, 2) cops can arrest you with no evidence, and 3) all it takes to be married is a judge, never mind the license or blood test.

You cannot compare this silent comedy to later films, as they are so different artistically. However, watchability is something I think that is a must for all films--even silent ones. And, by this standard, this is a very good film.

Douglas Fairbanks plays a very eccentric inventor who is in love with a girl. He tries to hard to help her with her little social crusade because he wants to impress her. Exactly how and what occurs, I'll leave it to you.

Mr. Fairbanks has long been associated with silent action pictures involving swashbucklers, adventure and romance. So I was very surprised to see that he actually made a comedy--and a good one to boot. However, if you expect to see "slapstick" with kicking, pratfalls and lots of insane action, this will be a surprise. There are only a few such elements in the film (particularly at the beginning) and the movie really is more plot-based than most silent comedies. Fairbanks shows that he COULD handle such a film and I was engaged from start to finish.

ONE CUTE NOTE ABOUT THE MOVIE--during one segment, Douglas is trying to entertain his guests with impersonations of celebrities. The Charlie Chaplin impersonation REALLY IS CHAPLIN according to IMDb! When I saw him, I thought to myself "hmm,..that guy is obviously NOT Chaplin". Ha--guess I was wrong! Chaplin and Fairbanks were friends and business partners, so I guess it's easy to understand how he got Charlie for this unbilled cameo.

This lightweight vehicle proved to be the last comedy Douglas Fairbanks would produce before turning exclusively to swashbuckler roles. Viewers familiar with Doug only as Zorro or D'Artagnan may be surprised to find him in a contemporary farce, playing the sort of zany young millionaire we associate more strongly with Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. And indeed, the opening sequence of this movie is right out of a Keaton comedy, as Doug, playing wealthy inventor Charlie Jackson, goes through his morning ritual of awakening, bathing, and dressing with the help of several bizarre gadgets of his own devising. This is pure silent comedy and a fun intro, amusingly summed up with a title reading: "Maybe necessity is the mother of invention -- but the father of these is a nut." And Charlie Jackson is definitely eccentric and woefully accident prone, but basically a good sort. The object of Charlie's affection is Estrell, a well-meaning young lady who has taken an interest in slum children. Estrell believes that taking poor kids into "refined" homes for an hour or two of play each day will make them better citizens. (The filmmakers express reservations about Estrell's theory in a mildly sarcastic title card, but however naive she may be, we're given to understand that Estrell, like Charlie, has a good heart.) The plot revolves around Charlie's increasingly desperate attempts to interest wealthy patrons in Estrell's idea, while also thwarting the attentions of a villainous gambler who feigns interest in order to have his way with the girl.

There are a number of comic high points, including another Keatonesque moment when Doug, who has lost his clothes in public and is stripped down to his underwear, manages to cover himself with a "suit" sliced out of a billboard advertising a men's clothing store. There are also some amusing moments involving wax dummies stolen from a museum, a suspenseful sequence in which Doug crawls through the pipes of a building's heating system, and a funny gag during a fistfight in the lobby of a movie theater. But perhaps the most memorable bit is one that occurs during a party sequence, early on. Doug gives a performance for his guests which consists of ducking behind a screen and re-emerging dressed as various famous historical personalities such as Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, General Grant, etc. Actually the stunt is faked, and this is revealed when the screen is accidentally knocked over and we see several startled actors standing by, already in costume for their roles. But there's one we haven't seen before, a Charlie Chaplin impersonator who goes into a brief imitation of the comedian before he is hustled off the stage. There has been some controversy over whether this impersonator might actually have been played by Chaplin (a close friend of Doug's off-camera), cleverly disguised in a Tramp outfit that doesn't look quite right; that is, the man himself playing a second-rate imitator. Several film historians have questioned whether this really is Chaplin, and it would seem that it is not, though the very notion of such a gag is an appealing one.

Over all I'd say The Nut is a pleasant and amusing light comedy, well worth a look for silent film buffs. For me, the main drawback is the personality of Doug's character: with his combination of high enthusiasm and ineptitude, Charlie Jackson gets a little exasperating after a while, and requires more patience from the viewer than similar characters played by Keaton or Lloyd. Even so, he redeems himself in the finale, ties up all the loose plot strands, wins the girl, and leaves us satisfied at the fade-out. What more can we ask of a movie hero?

Douglas Fairbanks made this film between Zorro and The Three Musketeers, and it would be the last time in the silent era he would play such a part.

Charlie Jackson (Fairbanks) is an inventor of things that either don't work exactly right or have limited usefulness or can't be easily reproduced on a mass scale. The film really isn't about him being an inventor though, except when one of his inventions - an automated fireworks display - blows up in a novel fashion and ruins a party he is having for the girl he loves, Estrell Wynn (Marguerite De La Motte). Estrell is devoted to her absurd theory that taking slum kids out of their environment and into "refined homes" for an hour each day will cause them to grow up to be good citizens with no further intervention required. Naturally, this is a real estate intensive theory to work out in practical terms, so Charlie tries to help Estrell in ways that backfire and anger her and cause her to put her trust in the owner of an illegal gambling house who has dishonorable intentions.

There are no big laughs in this one, and it seems at times that Fairbanks' character is trying to emulate Buster Keaton. Fairbanks has his character relying on quick thinking more than physicality and acrobatics. There are some interesting devices, such as shots making it appear that Fairbanks is climbing through the heating vents of the villain's gambling house in order to both ellude police and rescue the girl, and having either a devil or an angel shown as a switchboard operator connecting to Estrell depending on whether it is the gambler or Fairbanks attempting to call her.

This is probably much better than other comedies of the period, even if it is not up to Fairbanks' earlier work. It is therefore worth your time if you are interested in either Fairbanks' body of work or silent film in general.