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Douglas Fairbanks enters as D'Artagnan himself, striding into a closeup to fluff his peruke and wink at the audience. A lady's handkerchief is enough for the musketeer to launch a raucous tavern brawl, with tables and stools handily hurled when his sword is broken. A dissolve introduces his reincarnation in modern-day Kansas, just as impulsively gallant, leaping out a window and into a den of hoodlums upon spotting a mistreated maiden. (The proud member of the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Women is rewarded with a slap.) Chivalry nowadays gets you in trouble with the law, the grouchy trolley passenger the hero takes by the nose to make room for female riders turns out to be the chief of police. "He will always be a boy," the bounding Fairbanks persona met beautifully by Allan Dwan's own good-hearted kineticism. The comely flapper (Marjorie Daw) is courted by the moneyed skunk (Eugene Ormonde), paths cross in the desert where a Western plot is about to kick into gear. A charming maquette of the Park Avenue cityscape yields to authentic rocky panoramas, the fellow born during a cyclone grows rather poetic ("Golly, what a gully!") before doing handstands on the edge of the precipice. The Indian desperado (Frank Campeau) craves a new bride, the wronged fugitive (Tully Marshall) seeks justice, a skirmish here and a chase there sort everything out. The camera tilts up for the vertical glee of the star climbing a church spire, for the rope down the canyon there's an old-timer shaking his head in disbelief. "Now we'll just take the elevator!" Apogee (Robin Hood) and elegy (The Iron Mask) follow. With Kathleen Kirkham, Edythe Chapman, and ZaSu Pitts. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |