The Nut

Prior to releasing his Alexander Dumas-inspired movie, Fairbanks wasn't quite ready to give up his familiar trademark comedies yet. Just before he embarked on "The Three Musketeers," he took one last stab at pure comedy, releasing his March 1921's "The Nut." Fairbanks is a wacky inventor with a love interest two-floors above him who's interested in seeking for indigent kids to be housed in rich people's mansions. The entire plot is his attempt to get real and/or fake millionaires to support her vision.

One scene in "The Nut" caused the public confusion. Fairbanks pretends to dress in several historical characters behind a screen in the blink of the eye to amuse his beau's partygoers. A Charlie Chaplin lookalike emerges as one of the famous people. Remarkably, viewers were convinced he was the real Tramp, despite being taller than the shorter comedian.

Fairbanks most likely got a premonition that he should give up funny motion pictures when filming a stunt that appears towards the end of "The Nut." He's seen jumping out of a window onto a man walking on the sidewalk. But the actor landed on his arm, breaking his hand and injuring his back. Reports had Fairbanks recovering in the hospital for five weeks, but he was seen the next day at the studio posing for photographs with several people. Whatever the truth was, Fairbanks never returned to pure comedy after "The Nut," discovering his new niche in adventure costume movies was geared more to his more mature aspirations.

'The Nut' is entertaining enough, yet the elements never cohere. First, the good news: we get quite a bit of Douglas Fairbanks's trademark acrobatics. During the climactic sequence, he and Marguerite De La Motte (the latter partly stunt-doubled) clamber about inside a furnace boiler and its heating ducts -- good job this movie seems to take place in summer! -- and there's some clever double-exposure photography to give us a cutaway view of the two of them inside the ducts.

Unfortunately, 'The Nut' can't quite figure out what sort of film it wants to be. In the opening, Fairbanks is a crackpot inventor. We see him rousted out of bed by his own inventions: a series of Heath Robinson contraptions that end with Fairbanks bathed, showered and fully dressed. I was impressed by a strategic title card at the crucial moment when Fairbanks would have been seen naked. But what's all this cleverness in aid of? Parts of 'The Nut' are quite realistic; other parts are unrealistic but have some good screwball humour ... whilst other sections are neither realistic nor funny.

De La Motte plays a socialite who has some weird theory about letting slum children spend a few minutes each day in posh houses ... so that they'll be better citizens when they're whisked back to the slums afterwards, apparently. As the chief villain, William Lowery gives a good performance in a badly-written role. This is one of those movies in which the villain is willing to break a whole bunch of laws in order to seduce one particular woman (even though he has access to other women) for no discernible reason except to provide a conflict for the hero. There's also a supernatural running gag here, with villain Lowery phoning the heroine via a switchboard operated by the Devil in Hell, whilst Fairbanks phones the same lady via a switchboard staffed by Cupid. The heroine favours a white candlestick telephone which she keeps in its own weird little table kiosk: were ladies in 1921 unwilling to display their telephones?

The notorious Barbara La Marr is on screen briefly, but is given little to do. In a title card, she describes De La Motte as having 'yellow hair', but De La Motte photographs as brunette here. Mary Pickford turns up as a dress extra during the charity party sequence, yet her presence is so strong that I spotted her instantly. In the same sequence, aye, that's the real Charlie Chaplin briefly seen as a Chaplin impersonator.

In addition to his acrobatics, Fairbanks has a funny bit after he's stripped to his underwear in the street. Using a knife that he apparently keeps in his BVDs, Doug slices the two- dimensional pasteboard clothing off a conveniently life-sized male figure on a nearby billboard, then he 'wears' this back to his Greenwich Village home. (Not that this movie's exterior sets remotely resemble Greenwich Village of the 1920s, mind you.) I laughed heartily at a gag sequence in which Fairbanks pretends to be a corpse on a gurney. My rating: 7 out of 10.

This film is about an eccentric inventor Charlie Johnson (Douglas Fairbanks) who is constantly trying to win the heart of his beloved, Estrell Wynn (Marguerite De La Motte). The film is set in Greenwich Village. This movie should be seen not only because of Fairbanks' funny antics, but also because it conveys a deep sense of chivalry on his part. He will do anything for Estrell's love.

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.

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.