Double Trouble

Douglas Fairbanks is the repressed young banker of a small town: frightened of women and president of the local Sunday school society. This is such a strain on his nerves, that he takes a vacation, on which he is robbed, knocked out, and wakes up five years later in an outfit that convinces he he has been doing Lord know what for the last decade.

And so he has: gold mining, throwing widows out of their homes, making love to every handsome woman, and now running for mayor in a boom town in a rigged election. Can the old Fairbanks fix the problems caused by the missing one? And will he be happy doing so?

I was rather unimpressed by this early starring role for Doug. Although he offers a lot of fun playing two different personalities, he's still gearing his performance for the stage, and he offers little of the casual athleticism or humorous social commentary that graced his movies when in better hands than Christy Cabanne. Still, it's a pleasure seeing Tom Kennedy in a relatively straight role, and there's a nice little role for Kate Toncray.

"Double Trouble" (1915) with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. is a rather troubling film. Several reasons. First off, the print I have is an Alpha print. They can be anywhere from fantastic to literally unwatchable. This one is right on the brink of being just barely watchable. It isn't all Alpha's problem, though, as there is a tremendous amount of nitrate deterioration in several places, in a couple of places so bad that I can't figure out the continuity of the piece! Next: this was Douglas Fairbanks' second film where he was the main featured artist after "The Lamb". You'd think there would be a goodly amount of critical information about it just to fill out the continuity of Fairbanks' progress in film. Well, I checked my sources I have at home - basically the definitive sources on Fairbanks - Douglas Fairbanks by Jeffrey Vance and The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks by Tracey Goessel - and between the two of them there's barely more than a page, if you add up both sources, written about the film! Richard Schickel's nearly 300 page tome The Fairbanks Album says nary a word! Not a single user criticism has been posted to the IMDb.

The film isn't really a fun film like the rest of the output of Fairbanks. Indeed, it's almost troublesome because of its theme - a split personality - and the way the personalities are played. We first meet Fairbanks as Florian Amidon, a wilty-priss-of-a flower-man among other men - limp wrist, pinky finger extended constantly, allergic to women and constantly sneezing (to the point it was overbearing to watch!), shy and retreating, etc., etc., etc.... (We do learn in one scene that he's not necessarily homosexual because someone who obviously is and who tries to put the make on Fairbanks is rebuffed rather rudely - at least that's what we're led to believe) We see him like this until he's to travel on a train, and at the station is conked on the head. We next see him five years later. Without filling in all the details, he's now Eugene Brassfield, a cocky, womanizing, willing-to-bribe, heavy drinking rowdy who's running for mayor of the city where he's now living. Someone who's known him in the past recognizes him (he's been missing for five years, you see), gets him to see Madame Leclair who hypnotizes him. Things begin to be shown as to where he's been, what he's been doing, what he's become. What's not made clear is if he's a dual personality and always has been or if the conk on the head did the trick. He begins to go back and forth between characters. Should be a fun film, you'd think; but - the characters are so far on either end as to be extremely off-putting. Both treat women the wrong way. And there's a marriage involved. I'm not going to go into that. It makes the plot too complicated to speak about, plus the nitrate deterioration is usually where the women come in and some of the plot is actually difficult to follow because of it.

Now, another puzzling development. The film was released in 1915 (5 December). The President of the United States was Woodrow Wilson. A newspaper is shown that makes the point obvious for the viewer (and to Fairbanks observing in the film). He is next shown a newspaper from 1920 with Warren G. Harding as President! The film was made in 1915; in 1920 the genuine President of the United States was Warren G. Harding... I was curious if the print I have is a re-release with an added scene, or was the film's writer prescient enough in 1915 to figure out the outcome? That point disturbs me most of all!

Anyway, both characters are nasty species of the male character. At least they were/are to me. Supposedly the two characters - according to the script - will meld and become a character in the middle of the two, someone palatable to the world of normal. Such accordingly occurs at the very, very end.

Besides Fairbanks in this moil to watch are Margery Wilson, Richard Cummings, Olga Grey, Gladys Brockwell (the slippery woman of the piece, but the only one I cared to root for and watch!), Monroe Salisbury, William Lowery, Tom Kennedy, Kate Toncray, and a couple of others. Tom Kennedy, whom most film enthusiasts of the 30's know as a guy who played dumb cop after dumb cop or other humorous characters, here is a hard line almost-body guard to Fairbanks when he's running for office. The IMDb has him listed as Judge Blodgett. Problem is, Richard Cummings plays that part and is also listed as such. NOBODY seems to be able to get anything right about this film.

I won't watch this again unless a better print is available. It's actually difficult following all the details of the plot with the nitrate deterioration. And - the film is just not really a fun watch. It certainly is not Fairbanks the comedic, acrobatic swell that propelled him into super stardom, nor anywhere close to the swashbuckling giant he became during the 1920s. Interesting as his second film and simply a film for completists - unless a better print surfaces that adds more to the characterization than what I saw here.

Before he became a swashbuckling star, Fairbanks did comedy. Allegedly, this is one of those early efforts. But it's a chore.

We see an overweight Fairbanks at the beginning as a clerk who is, um, allergic to women. Ahem. He's the president of the local Prayer Society, or something. For reasons I couldn't fathom he gets sent away on a train, where he gets konked on the head by bandits. When we seem him awaken on the train (same train? Different train?) it's five years later and he's got amnesia.

With the help of a local psyhic he gets some insight into who he is supposed to be. He walks around with crib notes scribbled on his cuffs, like in Memento nearly a century later.

Frankly, I didn't care after a short while. Fairbanks prissy act wore out my nerves very early on. He's d#rn lucky he dropped a bunch of weight and figured out acrobatics and sword play because he was DOA as a comedic actor.

Famous Broadway stage actor Douglas Fairbanks was intrigued by the new medium of film and journeyed to Hollywood early 1915 to transfer his acting talents on to the screen. Using his theatre resume to gain a contract with Triangle Pictures, Fairbanks was cast by producer D. W. Griffith for comedic roles, which the actor was somewhat familiar with.

The stage-turned-film actor's first movies were comedies. Fairbanks' movie debut as a lead was November 1915's "The Lamb," based on a popular 1913 Broadway play. His second movie came a month later, in Decembers 1915's "Double Trouble," which continued Fairbanks being pigeonholed in a comedic role, which is viewable on the internet today.

Born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman, Fairbanks assumed his last name after his twice divorce mother changed her son's surname to her first husband's name. Dropping out of Denver East High School at 15 after he was suspended in cutting the school's piano wires, Fairbanks' early love for acting led to summer stock and eventually road tours. His talents earned him a Broadway role in 1902 at 19 years old, and he remained in New York City gaining respect as a stage actor.

Marrying a wealthy industrialist's daughter in 1907, Douglas had one son in this marriage, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (1909). Moving to Los Angeles, he immediately signed with Triangle Pictures, where one of its producer/owners, director Griffith, supervised his early movies.

"Double Trouble" was typical of Douglas' first few movies in Hollywood. He plays a somewhat shy banker who gets knocked out by a couple of thieves while on a train during vacation and wakes up five years later as a changed man, one who strikes oil and becomes very rich and famous. It's amazing that in 1915 the producers were able to predict the Warren Harding presidency in a 1920 newspaper headline to set the timeline when Fairbanks wakes up from the knock on his head when Woodrow Wilson wasn't even through his first term. Movie studios, however, had a habit of quickly changing titles and static letters/news banners in their later issuances of their film prints. So this may be the case here.

Fairbanks' lasted just one year at Triangle before he moved on to Paramount in 1916 and met Mary Pickford, an event that drastically changed the actor's life forever.