The Half-Breed

While Douglas Fairbanks is famous for his fantasy and adventure films (such as THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, ROBIN HOOD and THE MARK OF ZORRO), he also made a variety of other films...including some westerns early in his film career. TCM showed two of them tonight, THE GOOD BAD MAN and THE HALF-BREED. Both are about equally enjoyable, though THE HALF- BREED is exciting to watch because of its location filming in Boulder Creek (near San Jose) and Calaveras County (near Yosemite). Seeing all these giant redwoods is reason enough to see the movie!

When the film begins, a native woman has a baby and has been dumped by the father of the child. She is friendless and neither the whites nor Indians want anything to do with her. She then gives her baby to a nice old naturalist living in the woods then she kills herself! So the child is raised away from civilization by the old man. When the old guy dies, the now grown Sleeping Water (Fairbanks) travels to the nearby town and learns that pretty much most of the white folks he meets are Indian-hating scum. He decides to leave and return to the woods and is soon joined by Teresa, a woman who has stabbed two perverts who couldn't keep their hands off her. Additionally, Nellie from town inexplicably has fallen for Sleeping Water...as has Teresa. What's next? See the film.

While this is not a great film, it does do a nice job of humanizing the main character and the plot all centers on how trashy the 'civilized' white folks could be. In many ways, this is like a great silent western, THE SQUAW MAN...which is a must-see. As for THE HALF-BREED, it's very good for when it was made and ages reasonably well. Sadly, the film was restored by piecing together many different prints and some of them are pretty shabby condition- wise.

The usual suspects -- star Doug Fairbanks, writers Anita Loos and John Emerson and director Allan Dwan -- try something different from their usual light-hearted romp with social commentary, working from a story by Bret Harte.

Unfortunately, the copy screened by the Museum of Modern Art is in poor shape. Only about twenty-five minutes of the one-hour feature could be screened, and the print showed a lot of damage. The titles, when possessed of any humor, are dour and there isn't much of Doug's usual stuntwork -- he clambers around the redwood forests of northern California for a bit and bends a young conifer double a couple of times to spring from one place to another. We do get a bit of beefcake in an early scene, where he is shown, stripped to the waist, but that's about it.

The rest is an open attack on racism. Doug, the titular half-breed is trapped in a small, nasty town full of racists who dislike him solely because he is an Indian. Of course, Jewel Carmen and Alma Rubens have yens for him, but besides showing jealousy when Doug is not present, do nothing about it. The genially corrupt individuals who inhabit most of Harte's better known works are not present. Instead, they are selfish, nasty and smug

It's difficult to judge the impact of this movie almost a hundred years after it was produced, but over all it looks like an earnest work with some good production values: an attempt to expand Doug's range as a movie star. Judging by the fact that he went back to his usual mode of movie until 1920s' THE MARK OF ZORRO, it almost certainly didn't take. Nor, judging by what remains, should it have.

THE HALF-BREED is an incredibly underrated silent drama and I am so glad it recently got the gorgeous restoration it deserves. Photographed and acted beautifully, this is one of the best Hollywood productions of its time and still worth watching today.

That THE HALF-BREED came after the incredibly racist THE BIRTH OF A NATION is fascinating. The movie is not without its dated elements, but it is far more progressive in its call for tolerance and indictment of the white man's treatment of Native Americans than you would expect in a movie from 1916.

Doug Fairbanks is an actor more noted for his charisma and derring-do than his thespian chops. However, he does an admirable turn as Lo, the half-Native American, half-white outcast. This character is more somber than his usual roles, though no less active and principled. Sam De Grasse plays the villain as he often did for Fairbanks and he does well with his usual underplaying style.

However, the best performances come courtesy of Jewel Carmen and Alma Reubens. These two women get the meatiest roles in the movie: a flirtatious yet Machiavellian debutante flirting with scandal when she pursues Lo, and a world-weary con-woman on the run from the law and her own sordid past. Both bring great depth to these parts, neither fitting fully into the ingenue/vamp dichotomy you see in a lot of American films of the 1910s.

While THE BLACK PIRATE is my favorite Fairbanks movie, THE HALF-BREED is a close second. I absolutely enjoy watching this beautifully made movie and would recommend it to silent movie mavens.

This wonderful early silent by pioneering director Allan Dwan shows him in full mastery of film style -- excellent use of landscape, of close-ups, of action montage. The performances are all good, especially Alma Reubens as the woman who loves Fairbanks but thinks she'll never get him. A very fine script by Anita Loos. Well worth seeing -- and now you can because the film has been restored.

I have been collecting silent films on DVD for over 20 years and it's very gratifying to see more titles from 1910-1920 become available on the home market. Case in point is this satisfying 1916 double bill from Kino Lorber starring Douglas Fairbanks 4 years before his breakthrough film, THE MARK OF ZORRO. I had known about THE HALF BREED for years thanks to a famous still of Doug in the briefest of loincloths. It was considered a lost film and I never expected to see it. The rediscovery of old movies and the restoration of them has come a long way since the turn of the century with THE HALF BREED and THE GOOD BAD MAN being 2 excellent examples. Both are collaborative efforts between The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, La Cinematique Francaise, and Lobster Films. The quality of the movie image is excellent and the musical scores by Donald Sosin are simple and effective.

THE HALF BREED tells the story of Lo Dorman whose Native American mother was abandoned by his white father resulting in her death. He then faces extreme ostracism from the townspeople of the small community he lives in. THE GOOD BAD MAN has him playing a Robin Hood like bandit named "Passing Through" who steals only what is needed and then gives it to those who need it most. Both films benefit from the presence of Sam De Grasse, Fairbanks' go to villain, who is nothing less than a silent film version of Alan Rickman. Both of these movies were helmed by Allan Dwan (1885-1981), a Canadian born director whose career spanned over 50 years and featured such titles as 2 Shirley Temple vehicles (HEIDI, REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM) and the John Wayne classic, THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA. His silent films are now making a comeback with the recent release of 3 Gloria Swanson films (ZAZA, MANHANDLED, STAGE STRUCK).

Kino Lorber has recently released a number of Paramount silents including 2 classic W. C. Fields comedies (IT'S THE OLD ARMY GAME, RUNNING WILD) and the epic Western THE COVERED WAGON. Two more titles on the horizon include a newly restored version of Josef von Sternberg's THE LAST COMMAND with Emil Jannings and the one I've been waiting on, OLD IRONSIDES with Charles Farrell & Esther Ralston. That just leaves THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK, Valentino's THE SHEIK, and Erich von Stroheim's THE WEDDING MARCH from the old VHS set of almost 30 years ago to be released on DVD/Blu-Ray. The 1923 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and WINGS from that set have already been given deluxe editions... For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.