Greta Garbo in The Mysterious Lady (1928) dir. Fred Niblo

“The peasants call that the magic stream. They say it always reflects the face of one’s true love.”  GRETA GARBO IN THE MYSTERIOUS LADY (1928)

Poppy Faire · Strangers of the Night · 1923

Enid Bennett, from the American comedy film Strangers of the Night (Fred Niblo, 1923). The J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, University of Washington (5074) View on WordPress

Enid Bennett (as Poppy Faire), from the American comedy film Strangers of the Night (Fred Niblo, 1923). [detail]

Hallie Flanagan, the national director of the Federal Theater Project, and Fred Niblo, a former vaudevillian and Hollywood director, arrive for the opening of It Can't Happen Here, October 26, 1936. The play, about a fascist dictator who becomes president of the United States, was adapted from the novel by Sinclair Lewis.

Photo: RB for the Associated Press

Director Fred Niblo, Greta Garbo, and Antonio Moreno during the filming of THE TEMPTRESS (1926)

Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (Fred Niblo, 1922)

Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De La Motte, and Robert McKim in The Mark of Zorro (Fred Niblo, 1920)

Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Noah Beery, Charles Hill Mailes, Claire McDowell, Marguerite De La Motte, Robert McKim, George Periolat, Walt Whitman, Sidney De Gray, Tote De Crow. Screenplay: Douglas Fairbanks, Eugene Miller, based on a magazine story by Johnston McCulley. Cinematography: William C. McGann, Harris Thorpe. Art direction: Edward M. Langley.

Film firsts are usually worth checking out, and The Mark of Zorro is a double first: It's the first appearance of the title character on screen, and it's the first of the genre of films for which Douglas Fairbanks remains best-known, the swashbuckler. Since Fairbanks and co-scenarist Eugene Miller adapted Johnston McCulley's 1919 magazine story, "The Curse of Capistrano," the masked hero has been played by Tyrone Power, Guy Williams (in the Disney TV series), Frank Langella, George Hamilton (in a spoof featuring Zorro's gay twin brother), Alain Delon, and (as the aging Zorro and his hand-picked successor) Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas, and appeared in numerous Mexican and European films. The trope of the do-gooder who pretends to be a wimp but turns into a force for justice has its precursor in the Baroness Orczy's play and novel The Scarlet Pimpernel and lives on in countless superhero tales, most notably the Clark Kent/Superman story. As the languid fop Don Diego Vega, Fairbanks affects a weary slouch and spends his time doing tricks that involve a handkerchief. When he turns into Zorro, with mask and scarf over his head, he pastes on a little mustache oddly reminiscent of Boris Badenov, and succeeds in taking on the villains with great élan. The film itself begins slowly, with too much exposition crammed into the intertitles, but eventually Fairbanks gets his act together, and the climax of the movie is a hilarious showpiece for his acrobatic moves. He leads the Capistrano constabulary on a merry chase over walls and across rooftops, inevitably tempting them into disaster: He leaps over a pigsty, for example, whereupon the pursuers fall into it. At the end, revealing his secret identity, he wins the hand of Lolita Pulido (Marguerite De La Motte), by saving her family's estate from the clutches of the evil governor (George Periolat) and his henchmen, Capitán Juan Ramon (Robert McKim) and Sgt. Pedro Gonzales (Noah Beery), both of whom get branded with the emblematic Z (though the sergeant gets his only in the seat of his pants). Good fun, once it gets going. 

Joan Crawford-Nils Asher "Sueño de amor" (Dream of love) 1928, de Fred Niblo.

The Enemy (Ralph Forbes and Lillian Gish) Fred Niblo's film

Blood and Sand (Fred Niblo, 1922)

Auch nach 99 Jahren bleibt Ramon Novarro die attraktivste Karfreitags-Bibelschinken-Option, weshalb wir uns einmal mehr nicht zu Charlton Heston durchringen konnten. Vielleicht nächstes Jahr. Wobei, da wird dieser 100, das muss man doch begehen!

The Temptress (1926)

Director Fred Niblo with the crew on set of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

SARCÓFAGO: "A MARCA DO ZORRO" (THE MARK OF ZORRO USA, 1920) MUDO Legendas em Português