O Maluco

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.

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.

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.

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 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.