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Those rare souls who know anything about Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., probably associate his name with amazing stunt work in silent films. He is indeed justly known for that, but he should be appreciated for much more. Fairbanks, the great "swashbuckling" actor, was also one of the first important film auteurs, coming on the scene shortly after D.W. Griffith demonstrated the powerful effects a feature film could accomplish. Fairbanks put together a surprisingly coherent body of work, set a standard for film acting, and established conventions of film action (adapted from stage and page, of course) which have remained in place ever since.
In his films, Fairbanks embodied the American spirit, what I call practical romanticism: his characters were optimistic, hard-working, cheerful, openly affectionate toward friends and intimates, fond of domestic comforts but always seeking a new challenge, a new adventure. The Fairbanks hero is by no means perfect but is certainly laudable overall—the kind of person you'd want watching your back in a fight.
Fairbanks himself was no superman. Rather short, thin, and bandy-legged, he had a weak chin, high forehead, thin upper lip, and indistinct jawline—not the kind of face we associate with masculine resolution and heroism—yet he made no great effort to hide any of these presumed deficiencies. And that was the right choice, because his superficial physical limitations made his accomplishments that much more impressive.
The narrative formula for his work was set at the very beginning of his career as a movie star (he was 32 years old when he made his first feature), and Fairbanks seldom deviated from it until the talkies and the Depression made it no longer viable. Fairbanks typically plays an ordinary fellow, often one trapped in a dull office job, who yearns for adventure—and gets it but good. Alternatively, he might portray a spoiled rich swell forced by a series of disasters to prove himself a true American, a figure of grit, pluck, and resolve. The transformation of a meek or debauched weakling into a human dynamo became the hallmark of his work.
In The Lamb (1915), for example, his first starring role, Fairbanks played an effete Eastern snob battling Indians in the Wild West to save a girl who can't stand him. The films he released between 1915 and 1921 generally breezed by in less than 70 minutes. In brilliant and audacious comedies such as Wild and Woolly, The Nut, The Matrimaniac, The Mollycoddle, Flirting with Fate (in which a starving artist afraid to commit suicide hires someone to kill him and then changes his mind but has trouble getting the killer to quit), and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, the key elements of the Fairbanks persona were set forth: athleticism and grace.
Neither a particularly deep thinker nor a sensitive soul, in these early films he perfected a naturalistic acting style that transformed his deficiencies as a performer into assets. It also made him the biggest movie star in the world, as his naturalness made it easier for audiences to identify with him. The flattery of the audience in these films is indeed quite apparent, the idea being that any American could make a big difference in the world simply by summoning up enough grit and determination to make it happen.
In one sense, of course, Fairbanks was no ordinary American. He was an excellent gymnast, and he practiced one sport or another nearly every day for two decades, frequently working with professional coaches and world champion athletes. His fencing, according to a former French foils champion, was good enough to qualify him for the championship class. In training for The Three Musketeers he unofficially approached the world records for the standing high jump and the broad jump. He used a stunt double only once in his entire film career. Fairbanks was an extremely gifted natural athlete who trained with fierce dedication—not an ordinary guy at all. But in his aspirations, if not his natural gifts, he was not so different from the rest of us. His vision was thoroughly bourgeois; he was Everyman writ large. Audiences sensed that, and loved him for it.
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