Gladys Louise Smith, known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian actress resident in the U.S., and also producer, screenwriter, and film studio founder. She was a pioneer in the American film industry, with a Hollywood career that spanned five decades.
Captain Blood is a 1935 American black-and-white swashbuckling pirate film from First National Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by Harry Joe Brown and Gordon Hollingshead, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Ross Alexander. With a screenplay by Casey Robinson, the film is based on the 1922 novel Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini and concerns an imprisoned doctor and his fellow prisoners who escape their cruel island captivity to become West Indies pirates. An earlier 1924 Vitagraph silent film version of Captain Blood starred J. Warren Kerrigan as Peter Blood. Warner Bros. risked pairing two relatively unknown performers in the lead roles. Flynn's performance made him a major Hollywood star and established him as the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks and a "symbol of an unvanquished man" during the Great Depression. Captain Blood also established de Havilland, in just her fourth screen appearance, as a major star and was the first of eight films costarring Flynn and de Havilland. In 1938 they would be reunited with Rathbone in The Adventures of Robin Hood. The same year, Rathbone also starred with Flynn in The Dawn Patrol. In 1962, Flynn's son Sean starred in The Son of Captain Blood.
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1924 American silent swashbuckler film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Douglas Fairbanks, and written by Achmed Abdullah and Lotta Woods. Freely adapted from One Thousand and One Nights, it tells the story of a thief who falls in love with the daughter of the Caliph of Baghdad. In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Donald William Crisp was an English film actor as well as an early producer, director and screenwriter. His career lasted from the early silent film era into the 1960s. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1942 for his performance in How Green Was My Valley.
The Three Musketeers is a 1921 American silent film based on the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père. It was directed by Fred Niblo and stars Douglas Fairbanks as d'Artagnan. The film originally had scenes filmed in the Handschiegl Color Process. The film had a sequel, The Iron Mask (1929), also starring Fairbanks as d'Artagnan and DeBrulier as Cardinal Richelieu.
The Mark of Zorro is a 1940 American black-and-white swashbuckling film released by 20th Century-Fox, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, and starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, and Basil Rathbone. The supporting cast features Eugene Pallette, Gale Sondergaard, and Robert Lowery. The film is based on the novel The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley, originally published in 1919 in five serialized installments in All-Story Weekly, which introduced the masked hero Zorro; the story is set in Southern California during the early 19th century. After the enormous success of the silent 1920 film adaptation, the novel was republished under that name by Grosset & Dunlap. The Mark of Zorro was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film was named to the National Film Registry in 2009 by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", and to be preserved for all time.
The Mark of Zorro is a 1920 American silent Western romance film starring Douglas Fairbanks and Noah Beery. This genre-defining swashbuckler adventure was the first movie version of The Mark of Zorro. Based on the 1919 story The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley, which introduced the masked hero, Zorro, the screenplay was adapted by Fairbanks and Eugene Miller.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a 1925 American silent epic adventure-drama film directed by Fred Niblo and written by June Mathis based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by General Lew Wallace. Starring Ramon Novarro as the title character, the film is the first feature-length adaptation of the novel and second overall, following the 1907 short.
The Eagle is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, and Louise Dresser. Based on the posthumously published 1841 novel Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin, the film is about a lieutenant in the Russian army who catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. After he rejects her advances and flees, she puts out a warrant for his arrest, dead or alive. When he learns that his father has been persecuted and killed, he dons a black mask and becomes an outlaw. Black Eagle does not exist in the novel and was inspired by the performance of Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro in The Mark of Zorro.
The Crimson Pirate is a 1952 British-American Technicolor comedy-adventure film from Warner Bros. produced by Norman Deming and Harold Hecht, directed by Robert Siodmak, and starring Burt Lancaster, who also co-produced with Deming and Hecht. Co-starring in the film are Nick Cravat, Eva Bartok, Leslie Bradley, Torin Thatcher, and James Hayter. The film was shot in Ischia, the Bay of Naples and Teddington Studios. It makes the most of Lancaster's skills as a professional acrobat and his lifelong partnership with Cravat. Critics compared Lancaster favorably with Douglas Fairbanks Sr.
When the Clouds Roll By is a 1919 American comedy film starring Douglas Fairbanks and directed by Victor Fleming and Theodore Reed. After decades of not being seen by the public, the film was finally released in 2010 on DVD by Alpha Video with an original score by Don Kinnier.
The Show of Shows is a 1929 American pre-Code musical revue film directed by John G. Adolfi and distributed by Warner Bros. The all-talking Vitaphone production cost almost $800,000 and was shot almost entirely in Technicolor.
Don Q, Son of Zorro is a 1925 American silent swashbuckler romance film and a sequel to the 1920 silent film The Mark of Zorro. It was loosely based upon the 1909 novel Don Q.'s Love Story, written by the mother-and-son duo Kate and Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard. The story was reworked in 1925 into a vehicle for the Johnston McCulley character Zorro. The film adaptation was made by screenwriters Jack Cunningham and Lotta Woods for United Artists studios. Douglas Fairbanks both produced the film and starred as its lead character. It was directed by Donald Crisp, who also played the villain Don Sebastian.
Swashbuckler films are a subgenre of the action film genre, characterised by swordfighting and adventurous heroic characters, known as swashbucklers. While morality is typically clear-cut, heroes and villains alike often follow a code of honour. Some swashbuckler films have romantic elements, most frequently a damsel in distress. Both real and fictional historical events often feature prominently in the plot.
The Gaucho is a 1927 American silent adventure film starring Douglas Fairbanks and Lupe Vélez that is set in Argentina. The lavish adventure extravaganza, filmed at the height of Fairbanks' box office clout, was directed by F. Richard Jones with a running time of 115 minutes.
The Nut is a 1921 American silent film comedy directed by Theodore Reed.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. was an American actor and filmmaker, best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films. One of the biggest stars of the silent era, Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood",. He was also a founding member of United Artists as well as the Motion Picture Academy and hosted the 1st Academy Awards in 1929.
Reaching for the Moon is a 1917 American silent adventure film directed by John Emerson and written by John Emerson, Joseph Henabery, and Anita Loos. The film stars Douglas Fairbanks, Eileen Percy, Richard Henry Cummings, Millard Webb, Eugene Ormonde, and Frank Campeau. The film was released on November 17, 1917, by Paramount Pictures. It has been released on DVD.
Mary Pickford (1892–1979) was a Canadian motion picture actress, producer, and writer. During the silent film era she became one of the first great celebrities of the cinema and a popular icon known to the public as "America's Sweetheart".
