The Douglas Fairbanks Collection (The Thief of Bagdad/The Mark of Zorro/The Three Musketeers/Robin Hood/The Black Pirate/Don Q, The Son of Zorro)

Rating:
Summary: Action - adventure - romance
Review: OK I admit it, I haven't seen all of these movies. But here is the info on what I have seen:

The Thief of Bagdad - A very nice adventure movie. Fairbanks plays the thief, in love with the princess. He must infiltrate the palace and impress her more with a bit of magic and trickery. Out to stop him is a young May Wong, who wants her Chinese countryman to marry the princess. This is a really cool special effects movie. It has a genie, a flying carpet, lots of fake smoke and exotic costumes. (I saw the Kino VHS and picture quality was good.)

The Mark of Zorro - Fairbanks made this movie around 1920 when he was just starting out. He did all his own stunts, and knowing this made it that much cooler watching him go go go. This has the blend of action and humor that you will be familiar with from more modern Zorro movies. It is very watchable now and the stunts were frequent and impressive.

Robin Hood - A fabulous swashbuckler. The sets for this were huge and very expensive - they built a middeval castle right in the middle of then undeveloped Hollywood. At one point Fairbanks slides down a two story curtain in a long fantastic sword fight. This is good action and stunt filled adventure movie and similar to The Thief of Bagdad in terms of who will like it.

The Black Pirate - This is the oldest surviving three color film. That is film the stuff in the camera I am talking about. So the reason it gets published now is for historical interest in film methods. The story is OK, but the image quality is not so hot. This isn't Kino's fault - the film was in poor condition with many scratches. Fairbanks and crew of pirates do nifty stunts, including an underwater attack on a ship. However this movie is unlikely to appeal to most. Watch it for historical value or pass on it.

I haven't seen the other films included in this set. I think all of these are silent movies, just so you know. All except The Black Pirate have strong appeal today and are easy to watch. Silent movies that I have watched from Kino have color tinting and toning. (This is not colorization and these films could have had these colors when originally released. Silent film scripts provide notes on how to tint a scene for effect.) Kino does a great job with the silent movies so this is a safe investment.

Fans of Fairbanks should like this. University libraries should consider it also. Kino does consistent restorations of older films and at least three of these films are the sort of thing film students might want to have access to.