Douglas Fairbanks in “The Matrimoniac”

December 16, 1916 was the release date of The Matrimoniac, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Constance Talmadge.

This is one of the most physical, action-packed Fairbanks comedies, the whole picture essentially one long white-knuckle chase. Fairbanks and Talmadge are on their way to elope, with the girl’s father and a rival for her hand in hot pursuit. Doug manages to put his girl on a train, but misses it himself when he goes to get the minister. So then it’s a race to catch up to the train in various conveyances before the father and boyfriend can reach the girl. Later the sheriff comes into it — and Fairbanks’ acrobatic heroics are truly breath-taking. To stop the rival from stealing his bride, he leaps between buildings, hops over a six foot man, climbs on electrical wire, scales the side of a house, jumps from a cliff onto a tree….needless to say in the end, he achieves his objective. I often think of this comedy as a model for the climax to Harold Lloyd’s Girl Shy. Quite possibly the most watchable of all of Fairbanks’ romantic comedies.

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To find out more about show business past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.