Douglas Fairbanks made many, many good films over the span of his career. This one, while it has its good points, does not belong in the upper echelon of his best films. In this one, he plays an outlaw who for some reason is a good guy in this film (a rather common theme nowadays). He does his usual "Doug" things, his athletic tricks and so forth, but what is noteworthy about this film is that he didn't do some of the stunts himself. What really kind of bothered me about this film (and the reason it gets a "6") is when he and the local padre decide who gets to go to a healing fountain and who doesn't. A man with a hideous disease that has to keep himself covered is told by Doug to go kill himself! Doug! Nowadays, that probably would not be considered so bad in a movie, but back then, dang! This film is also noteworthy because it was the film debut of the ill-fated actress Lupe Velez. She plays a mountain girl who early in the film falls to what should have been her death by trying to dislodge a lamb who had gotten stuck in some rocks. She sees the Virgin Mary (who I understand was played by Doug's wife at the time, Mary Pickford) and the spot becomes sacred and a healing fountain results. Lupe is very much Lupe, if you've ever seen any of her films, she's very over-the-top pretty much all the way through. In a few years, when she started doing talking pictures and added speech to that, she really came into her own, I think. Anyway, if you just have to see all of Douglas Fairbanks' films, go ahead and see it. If you just want to see a silent film, you can do much better than this one, including several Douglas Fairbanks films.
Review of The Gaucho
