"Double Trouble" (1915) with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. is a rather troubling film. Several reasons. First off, the print I have is an Alpha print. They can be anywhere from fantastic to literally unwatchable. This one is right on the brink of being just barely watchable. It isn't all Alpha's problem, though, as there is a tremendous amount of nitrate deterioration in several places, in a couple of places so bad that I can't figure out the continuity of the piece! Next: this was Douglas Fairbanks' second film where he was the main featured artist after "The Lamb". You'd think there would be a goodly amount of critical information about it just to fill out the continuity of Fairbanks' progress in film. Well, I checked my sources I have at home - basically the definitive sources on Fairbanks - Douglas Fairbanks by Jeffrey Vance and The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks by Tracey Goessel - and between the two of them there's barely more than a page, if you add up both sources, written about the film! Richard Schickel's nearly 300 page tome The Fairbanks Album says nary a word! Not a single user criticism has been posted to the IMDb.
The film isn't really a fun film like the rest of the output of Fairbanks. Indeed, it's almost troublesome because of its theme - a split personality - and the way the personalities are played. We first meet Fairbanks as Florian Amidon, a wilty-priss-of-a flower-man among other men - limp wrist, pinky finger extended constantly, allergic to women and constantly sneezing (to the point it was overbearing to watch!), shy and retreating, etc., etc., etc.... (We do learn in one scene that he's not necessarily homosexual because someone who obviously is and who tries to put the make on Fairbanks is rebuffed rather rudely - at least that's what we're led to believe) We see him like this until he's to travel on a train, and at the station is conked on the head. We next see him five years later. Without filling in all the details, he's now Eugene Brassfield, a cocky, womanizing, willing-to-bribe, heavy drinking rowdy who's running for mayor of the city where he's now living. Someone who's known him in the past recognizes him (he's been missing for five years, you see), gets him to see Madame Leclair who hypnotizes him. Things begin to be shown as to where he's been, what he's been doing, what he's become. What's not made clear is if he's a dual personality and always has been or if the conk on the head did the trick. He begins to go back and forth between characters. Should be a fun film, you'd think; but - the characters are so far on either end as to be extremely off-putting. Both treat women the wrong way. And there's a marriage involved. I'm not going to go into that. It makes the plot too complicated to speak about, plus the nitrate deterioration is usually where the women come in and some of the plot is actually difficult to follow because of it.
Now, another puzzling development. The film was released in 1915 (5 December). The President of the United States was Woodrow Wilson. A newspaper is shown that makes the point obvious for the viewer (and to Fairbanks observing in the film). He is next shown a newspaper from 1920 with Warren G. Harding as President! The film was made in 1915; in 1920 the genuine President of the United States was Warren G. Harding... I was curious if the print I have is a re-release with an added scene, or was the film's writer prescient enough in 1915 to figure out the outcome? That point disturbs me most of all!
Anyway, both characters are nasty species of the male character. At least they were/are to me. Supposedly the two characters - according to the script - will meld and become a character in the middle of the two, someone palatable to the world of normal. Such accordingly occurs at the very, very end.
Besides Fairbanks in this moil to watch are Margery Wilson, Richard Cummings, Olga Grey, Gladys Brockwell (the slippery woman of the piece, but the only one I cared to root for and watch!), Monroe Salisbury, William Lowery, Tom Kennedy, Kate Toncray, and a couple of others. Tom Kennedy, whom most film enthusiasts of the 30's know as a guy who played dumb cop after dumb cop or other humorous characters, here is a hard line almost-body guard to Fairbanks when he's running for office. The IMDb has him listed as Judge Blodgett. Problem is, Richard Cummings plays that part and is also listed as such. NOBODY seems to be able to get anything right about this film.
I won't watch this again unless a better print is available. It's actually difficult following all the details of the plot with the nitrate deterioration. And - the film is just not really a fun watch. It certainly is not Fairbanks the comedic, acrobatic swell that propelled him into super stardom, nor anywhere close to the swashbuckling giant he became during the 1920s. Interesting as his second film and simply a film for completists - unless a better print surfaces that adds more to the characterization than what I saw here.