| Show how I 1 broke into the movies 0 copyright by mil hal C C herman L DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS STRANGE S as it may seem to hla his I 1 friends in doug jump into the movies with one of 0 those hair raising hurdles over a ten foot wall and stranger still he actually entered the picture game as a stage star and not as an athlete ills file athletic proclivities came to the surface somewhat later and only after causing the picture producers some sleepless nights they had plenty of visions of thousands of feet of film going to waste because he moved too rapidly for the movies and ex ei pecked to see nothing but streaks and blurs on the screen however an earlier career which ran the gamut of law stocks and bonds hardware and other adventures including a job as valet to several hundred cows cow on a cattle boat bound for europe kept being interrupted every so often by stage appearances some were good and some not so good all however were diligent and this diligence brought experience and eventually broadway stardom in through association with william A brady george M cohan and cohan and harris about this time D W griffith was standing the theatrical world on its head with his picture the birth of a nation previously the theater looked down donnon on the movies as rather pesky poor relations then came a rush of legitimate L douglas fairbanks actors to the screen but doug decided that he who leaps like he who laughs must leap last to leap best so lie he did in the summer of 1914 he be went to work for D IV griffith at 2000 a week for ten weeks and he made a picture called the lamb which was an immediate success triangle of which griffith was the head came forward with a three year contract and from then on fairbanks was in the movies for keeps lie he also had a habit of going to a given point by the shortest route and in his earlier pictures lie he would sometimes leap over a fence or hedge and once negotiated the other side of a house by going over it it here the producers and technical experts gave vent rent to grave misgivings as to the cameras ability to record such rapid movement everything heretofore had been done very slowly in pictures and all gestures were deliberate like the old melodramatic poses however in spite of all the howls bowls of protest griffith waved them aside and waited to see what would show up on the film the result brought forth an avalanche from the press about the acrobatic ability of doug fairbanks and before long all his stories were being written with new and more difficult leaps the astonished public viewed a I 1 long g series of pictures picture including double trouble manhattan madness the good bad man ilan the naif half breed in again out again wild and wooly man from painted post and among others a sereen screen version of his old stage play ile he comes up smiling by tills this time tit lie doug said A long nourished desire to do other t things h I 1 beside leap and smile started the urge to produce my own pictures whatever success I 1 may have gained in tills this direction Is most apparent in such production as the mark of zorro the three musketeers the black pirate robin nood flood the file thief of bagdad don Q the gaucho and the iron mask ivask what Is the secret of screen success well now I 1 refuse to play the part of preacher or one of those fol low me and get there men but my own observation Is that the way to screen success Is the same as in any other line of endeavor it takes enthusiasm intelligence and courage enthusiasm to give your best to anything you attempt intelligence to direct the enthusiasm and courage to carry through in the face of all obstacles |
