THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH (1916) – Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may remember that I’m a geek for Silent Movies. Last week’s look at Douglas Fairbanks’ swashbuckler films from the silent era was so well received that I decided to post a review of Doug’s often overlooked “drug comedy.”
In this roughly 25-minute comedy short, Fairbanks played a detective named Coke Ennyday as a reference to Sherlock Holmes’ addiction to injections of cocaine in his original stories. Yes, I’m serious.
The short’s comedic approach to cocaine, opium and more demonstrates the “anything goes” attitude before film codes were implemented to ban certain content from the big screen. In the pre-internet years, The Mystery of the Leaping Fish was a film that people refused to believe existed until you had them sit down and watch it with you.
The notion of a theatrical comedy about drug use in 1916 seemed utterly impossible to them, and you could win a fair amount of bets with skeptics who insisted there is no way such a film would have been allowed to be made. The fact that it was written by THE Tod Browning shocked them, too.
THE STORY: Continue reading
THE DON’T MISS EDITION, as 
THE MARK OF ZORRO (1920) – Douglas Fairbanks digs into his comedic AND acrobatic skills in this first screen adaptation of Johnston McCully’s masked hero of 1820s California (The Curse of Capistrano had just been published the year before and Fairbanks bought the film rights for United Artists.) 
Excellent fight choreography, heroic opposition to tyranny and the rousing, marathon chase and fight scene near the film’s finale make The Mark of Zorro an absolute must-see for anyone curious about silent movies. Nearly every frame of the film is a portrait.
As always, 
Here at 
Whether you like or hate Donald Trump is irrelevant – it became clear long ago that the cesspool of corruption which masquerades as America’s political system is targeting Trump to make a public example of any non-career politician who dares to oppose the establishment.
