Douglas Fairbanks Documentary Pt. 8 - Divorce and Decline

From the 2005 documentary film, "The Great Swashbuckler," produced by Delta Entertainment with the assistance of the Douglas Fairbanks Museum.

Pt. 8 continues from Pt. 7 with the onscreen pairing of Fairbanks and Pickford in Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" (1929), a project which widened the growing rift between these two great stars and signaled the beginning of the end for Hollywood's first power couple. Tells the story of Doug's affair with Lady Sylvia Ashley and Mary Pickford's quiet romance with Charles "Buddy" Rogers. (They would both marry their respective partners soonafter the Pickford/Fairbanks divorce was finalized in 1936.) Also explores Fairbanks' talking pictures in the 1930s: "Reaching for the Moon," (his only musical with music by Irving Berlin and a cameo by Bing Crosby), the 1931 travelogue "Around the World With Douglas Fairbanks," 1932's "Mr. Robinson Crusoe," and Alexander Korda's "The Private Life of Don Juan" (1934), which would be his final film.

Featuring rare Fairbanks film clips, photographs and other materials from the museum's archives. Also includes interviews with museum curator and Fairbanks biographer Keri Leigh, film historian Sparrow Morgan, and Annette Lloyd of Hollywood Forever.

90 minutes, available in 9 parts on YouTube or on DVD through the museum's online gift shop at http://DouglasFairbanks.org

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Douglas Fairbanks
• Douglas Fairbanks Museum
• Keri Leigh
• Mary Pickford
• Lady Sylvia Ashley
• Charles Buddy Rogers
• Irving Berlin
• Bing Crosby
• Bebe Daniels
• Alexander Korda
• United Artists
• silent film
• classic movies
• silent cinema
• Hollywood History
• famous Hollywood couples

[FairbanksMuseum]

But LISTEN to that BIG voice!

[35westst]

Morgan, if only the camera man had put his light meter on your face! instead of the sunlit background. You are in a tunnel of darkness.

[supercazza71]

perhaps He could of done the talkies well if the film had been as good as the silent ones?

[PC3900]

Doug was not suited to talkies at all - in silents he seemed so much larger than life.