Double Trouble (Douglas Fairbanks, 1915)

W. Christy Cabanne: Double Trouble (1915). Newspaper ad from IMDb.

DOUBLE TROUBLE (Fine Arts Film Co., US 1915)
    Dir.: William Christy Cabanne; supv.: D. W. Griffith; cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Richard Cummings, Olga Gray, Margery Wilson, Tom Kennedy, Gladys Brockwell, Kate Toncray, Monroe Salisbury; 16 mm, 1400 ft, 55’ (17 fps), Library of Congress (AFI / Walker Collection), reissue Enterprise Distributing Corp.
    English intertitles.
    Grand piano: [Francesca {P...dalini / Ballini}?]
    Viewed at Cinema Ruffo, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): The Griffith Project 8, 16 Oct 2004.

J. B. Kaufman [DWG Project # 522]: "Even if the Fine Arts policy of importing stage stars was an almost total failure, the one exception – the launching of Douglas Fairbanks’ screen career – was such a spectacular success that that policy seems justified in hindsight. Then again, even his earliest films suggest that the irrepressible Fairbanks would have found his way to the screen anyway, even without Fine Arts. Double Trouble continues the pattern established in The Lamb, contrasting Fairbanks the sissy with Fairbanks the robust young man. This prissiness vs. manliness idea appears, in fact, so persistently in Fairbanks’ films as to constitute one of his favorite themes. The Mark of Zorro, with its delightful distinction between foppish Don Diego and dashing Zorro, is probably the most famous example, but there are plenty of others."

"The difference in Double Trouble is that, like such recent dual-personality films as The Woman of Mystery and The Case of Becky, it gave the device a psychological premise. Fairbanks’ two “selves” (their personalities suggested by their very names, “Florian” and “Brassfield”) are two distinct beings, both inhabiting the same body but at war with each other. Not that Fairbanks takes any of this seriously; he’s clearly having the time of his life romping through a comic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As the prissy Florian, he’s forever cringing with upraised hands, nervously nipping at his pinky finger as he recoils in horror from some fresh outrage. He’s afflicted with a chronic sneeze which seems to intensify around women, as if he’s somehow allergic to them. (He stops short of out-and-out homosexuality, and in fact is as panic-stricken at the advances of a mincing bellboy as at the threat of any other kind of intimacy.) As Brassfield, on the other hand, he’s the cocky, grinning, self-confident Fairbanks we all know, and then some. With careless ease he takes on the world of local politics, cheerfully indulging in practices which, in today’s world, would destroy a political career in five minutes. (In one scene he hands a fat wad of bills to an associate, on a public sidewalk in broad daylight, and casually indicates distribution of them. In another scene, Fairbanks’ henchmen hustle a potential whistle-blower down a dark alley, and a shooting seems imminent. The actual ploy is more devious, and perhaps easily missed on first viewing: one of the henchmen simply fires the revolver at the ground, then places it in the victim’s pocket. The police, arriving moments later to break up the altercation, find the still-warm gun in the rival’s possession, and he’s promptly hauled off to jail!)"

"Fairbanks, in short, is the whole show. Bouncing from one extreme to the other, indulging in such set-pieces as a drunk scene that begins with the go-getter and ends with the timid character (who of course has never been intoxicated before), he easily dominates the proceedings. Louis Reeves Harrison, writing in Moving Picture World (13 November 1915, p. 1319), found this a shortcoming: “there is no other characterization from beginning to end calculated to provide an interest allied to his shifting personality and adventures.” Be that as it may, Double Trouble is clearly designed as a showcase for Fairbanks, and he makes the most of it."

"As with The Lamb, all of this has little if anything to do with Griffith. Director Christy Cabanne can be sensed looking over his shoulder at Griffith in some of his other films, but there’s no such sense in Double Trouble – until the last reel, when the jailed innocent’s wife decides to commit suicide. Then, suddenly, we’re watching a different movie, featuring a Griffithian race to the rescue by Fairbanks and company. It was reported at the time that the mayor of Santa Ana, California, had given Cabanne the key to the city, along with the services of the police and fire departments, resources well utilized during the scenes of the Election Day parade."

"A far more noticeable presence than Griffith’s is that of the uncredited Anita Loos, whose witty, conversational intertitles set the tone of the film perfectly, and forecast the delightful titles she would continue to provide for Fairbanks’ films over the next two years. Some viewers will note that Fairbanks’ mental condition is diagnosed as “aphasia” – a diagnosis no more accurate in this film than in several other films of the period – but Loos seems to acknowledge the inaccuracy in a sly intertitle: “Aphasia is a mental condition, vouched for by all our best novelists and dramatists.”"

"Although our print of Double Trouble is affected by nitrate decomposition, the continuity of the story is still clear, and we’re lucky to be able to see the film at all. Interestingly, this print seems to derive from a reissue. Most of the intertitles still bear the original Fine Arts logo, but the two newspaper inserts used to indicate Florian’s five-year blackout have been replaced with newspapers from 1915 (reporting a special meeting of Wilson’s cabinet) and from 1920 (reporting Warren Harding’s election as President)! By 1920, of course, Fairbanks had become a much bigger star for his own company, and it’s hardly surprising that his earlier films should be reissued. But after the events of the intervening years, Double Trouble must have appeared a different film to contemporary audiences. The scenes of Brassfield addressing crowds of voters on Election Day, for example, had been oddly prescient; in the interim they had been duplicated by real-life shots of Fairbanks addressing vast throngs of fans during the Liberty Loan rallies of World War I." – J. B. Kaufman [DWG Project # 522]

AA: Douglas Fairbanks's second starring role in a film.

Based on his favourite double role concept: slacker / daredevil, Jekyll / Hyde, here called Florian / Brassfield. I was thinking about The Nutty Professor (1963) with Jerry Lewis as Julius Kelp / Buddy Love. The shy boy theme also evokes Harold Lloyd in The Kid Brother.

Oil and politics. Clothes. "Aphasia", read: amnesia. A five year amnesia.

The visual quality is bad, even horribly disfigured. The screening ran too fast. The actual duration was as announced, 53'20".

+  Very likeable.