Wild and Woolly (Silent)

Jeff Hillington lives his life dreaming of "The Old West." He is thrilled when his railroad magnate father orders him to Bitter Creek, Arizona to investigate the feasibility of a new train line Realizing that their modern borough will disappoint their potential benefactor, the townsfolk bring the Wild West back-to-life, staging saloon fights, hold-ups and shoot-outs. All is well until a gang of outlaws seizes the opportunity to actually stick-up the bank. Heroic Jeff rides out after the bandits, not realizing that his guns are filled with blanks.

Only eighteen months after his debut in D.W. Griffith's The Lamb (1916), handsome, athletic, charismatic Douglas Fairbanks had established himself as Hollywood's third-highest paid actor, behind Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. The mighty triumvirate of friends went on to found United Artists in 1919, and the studio's financial success was fueled to a great extent by Fairbanks' motion pictures. As the first president of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fairbanks presented the very first Oscars in 1927. He is best known for his lavish swashbuckling adventures, most notably The Mark Of Zorro (1920), The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Cinematographer Victor Fleming would go on to direct the towering Hollywood classics Gone With The Wind and The Wizard Of Oz.

• silent