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Down
To Earth (1917) Starring Douglas Fairbanks
If you're ever stranded
on a desert
island, do as Douglas Fairbanks does, and you'll never want to leave!
That's
the rollicking Down To Earth in a nutshell. We tend to think of
Fairbanks as
the swashbuckling star of epic adventure movies, and in the 1920s, he
certainly
was, but in his earlier films, he was a little different: an
all-American
man of action and good cheer, confronting the fads of the day with a
grin.
That's the Fairbanks who swept to screen stardom within just a year of
his debut, and that's the hero of Down to Earth. This is the perfect film
to illustrate
the Fairbanks formula of an active body and a positive attitude,
especially
with its witty script by Anita Loos and John Emerson. When the girl he
loves enters a sanitarium with nervous exhaustion, Doug rescues her and
the other residents by taking them out to sea, slyly staging a fire
aboard
ship, leading them ashore on a deserted coast, and showing everyone how
to survive (and thrive), away from their medicine bottles and butlers.
Of course, it's not all that simple. There's an enemy in the
group
and certain complications arise, but there isn't much that Douglas
Fairbanks
can't handle! The sparkling score
compiled and
scored by Frederick Hodges is exclusively made up of music written by
the
great American ragtime composer George L. Cobb. Plus Bonus Shorts: A terrifically
entertaining Silent
films brought to life by Frederick Hodges' lively and authentic piano
playing.
Fans of Ragtime will recognize many classic rags and Ragtime-era songs
in the scores. Frederick
Hodges, San Francisco, Piano Music, Piano, Berkeley
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