THE MAN FROM PAINTED POST (1917) – Here is another Douglas Fairbanks movie from the years before he became the film world’s premier swashbuckler. Unlike the pure comedy of Fairbanks’ The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, which I reviewed last week, The Man from Painted Post was an action comedy set in the old west.
Doug starred as Fancy Jim Sherwood, a Charles Siringo-style old west private detective whose agency has been hired to investigate and shut down a Wyoming rustling empire run by outlaw chief Bull Madden (Frank Campeau). Fancy Jim sets about his task by showing up in the crime-ridden region undercover in the guise of a clumsy, citified twit from back east.
That allows Fairbanks to show off his athleticism AND talent for comedy through slapstick fakery to make his eastern Dude character seem hilariously inept at roping, riding and shooting. Fancy Jim Sherwood’s masquerade succeeds in making Bull Madden and his gang dismiss him as a non-threatening wimp.
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