Amazon.com Douglas Fairbanks was 44 when he made The Gaucho, one of his most thoughtful and visually rich adventures. As the lusty, live-for-today leader of a South American outlaw band preying upon small villages, he drives out a corrupt garrison from a holy mountain village (which seems to literally hang off the edge of a cliff by the grace of God) and takes over the town like a benevolent dictator. When a plague victim infects a wound of his, the impish roustabout becomes a brooding cloud of despair, until he's selflessly saved by the blessing of the fabled "Miracle Girl." As in The Thief of Bagdad, Fairbanks plays the repentant rascal, but one whose acrobatic antics and cigarette tricks mask a hard-living, hedonistic life: he smokes, drinks to excess, and lives in sin with the sexy Lupe Velez, and a sudden conversion isn't about to change a long life of debauchery overnight. Fairbanks hasn't slowed down a bit, leaping and cavorting with the same jaunty bounce and hearty laugh, but the dark undertones and surprising coda suggest the work of a mature artist rethinking his swashbuckling superhero image in light of his advancing years. Lushly designed and handsomely shot (by Tony Gaudio), The Gaucho is also one of the most gorgeous pictures of the silent era. --Sean Axmaker --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.
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