Douglas Fairbanks, the gaucho
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Douglas Fairbanks, the gaucho |
| Original title | The Gaucho / Douglas Fairbanks as The Gaucho |
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| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1927 |
| length | 115 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | F. Richard Jones |
| script | Lotta Woods based on a design by Douglas Fairbanks |
| production | Douglas Fairbanks |
| music | Arthur Kay |
| camera | Tony Gaudio |
| cut | William Nolan |
| occupation | |
Guest Appearance : Mary Pickford as the Virgin Mary | |
Douglas Fairbanks, the Gaucho is a 1927 American silent film with Douglas Fairbanks in the title role.
action
Somewhere in the Argentine Andes . In a small mountain town there is a brutal usurper who harassed and plundered the residents. A gaucho, who with his men want to free the place from the villains, is infected on purpose by a vengeful leper who suffers from "black damnation" (= plague ) when the leper touches his hand on the spot where the gaucho has a cut. Only by visiting a pilgrimage church, where he meets the guardian of the holy shrine, who teaches him to pray, can he be cured of his illness through a miracle of faith.
Led by her to the right faith, the Virgin Mary appears to the gaucho for a few seconds in these moments of greatest piety. We learn that a miracle is said to have happened here once: a girl was saved from falling a steep wall into the depths through the apparition of the Holy Virgin. Thereupon the believers built the pilgrimage church on this spot, around which the town developed in the following period. This “city of miracles”, as it has been called since then, flourished and prospered and became wealthy, which, as expected, also attracted dark rabble. One day the greedy band of robbers appeared under Ruiz and spread out here.
The gaucho meets a girl from the mountains who falls in love with him. It is a fiery, spirited Señorita who is prone to fits of jealousy and in one of these moments of excessive passion first becomes a fury and then betrays the gaucho to the troops of the villainous Ruiz. But the Argentine hothead's love for their gaucho is so great that a little later she calls for help to free her lover. In the end, the villains are defeated and driven out, and nothing stands in the way of a future together for the two lovers.
Production notes
Douglas Fairbanks, the Gaucho , originally The Gaucho , was created at Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth near Los Angeles and was premiered in the United States on November 27, 1927. Unlike in Germany, you could see the 1929 film in Austria under the simple translation of The Gaucho .
Fairbanks is said to have had the idea for this film, for which he provided a draft as a screenplay under the pseudonym "Elton Thomas", during a pilgrimage to Lourdes .
For the then 19-year-old Mexican Lupe Vélez , this film meant her breakthrough in Hollywood. Mary Pickford , who was here only a brief guest role as the Virgin Mary, was married to Fairbanks.
Reviews
In the November 22, 1927 issue of the New York Times , Mordaunt Hall wrote : “Dashing heroism and sheer cheering have been the extraordinary hallmarks of all Douglas Fairbanks productions to date, and so it is not particularly surprising, including his last one to date Meet the movie, 'The Gaucho With Douglas Fairbanks' … with a rather gruesome undertone of the otherwise cheerful symphony. In parts of this film this seems to work ... (...) Mr. Fairbanks is no less agile than he was in other productions, maybe he has even more opportunities here to prove his agility. Not only does he jump on the saddle at an amazing speed, but when he escapes from a prison cell, he shows antics that would make even monkeys green with envy. He climbs trees like a South Sea islander could never do and then he swings from branch to branch ... "
In Paimann's film lists , the film is called an “adventure drama” and judged: “The fact that this subject, in its otherwise undrinkable mixture of adventure, romance and piety, could provide the raw material for a very excellent film, is to be seen as a measure of its quality. Douglas Fairbanks puts his stamp on the whole thing. His dexterity, the meticulously executed tricks and sensations, the swirling tempo of his playing, with which the director keeps pace, are complemented by masterful visual movement. A presentation that is not only generous but also imposing creates effective backgrounds. The photography is consistently at a remarkable height. - Overall qualification: a hit ”.
"Muted coat-and-epee film, which is heading for a fine climax."
Jeffrey Vance, in his Fairbanks biography, sees The Gaucho as "almost a masterpiece" and "an anomaly in his work". He continues: “The film shows the effort to achieve unexpected darkness in tone, equipment and character. The spirit of adolescent boys' adventure, which was the ubiquitous characteristic of his previous films, is completely absent this time around. All of this was replaced by spiritual zeal and an element of seething sexuality that had never been seen in any of his productions before. "
Web links
- Douglas Fairbanks, the Gaucho in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times, November 22, 1927
- ^ The Gaucho in The New York Times
- ↑ The Gaucho ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Paimann's film lists
- ↑ Jeffrey Vance: Douglas Fairbanks. Berkeley 2008. University of California Press. P. 227. ISBN 978-0520256675
