The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916)
1916 · Silent film · 25 min · dir. Christy Cabanne
Mr Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. AS THE MASTER OF DISGUISE AND SUPER SLEUTH WITH A CLANDESTINE CRAVING "COKE" ENNYDAY
- Mystery
- Comedy
- Crime
Synopsis
Coke Ennyday, the scientific detective, divides his own time in periods for "Sleep", "Eat", "Dope" and "Drink". In fact he's used to overcome every situation with drugs: consuming it to increase his energies or injecting it in his opponents to KO them. To help the police he discovers a contraband of opium (which he eagerly tastes) transported with "Leaping Fishes", and the blackmail of a mysterious man who wants to marry the "fish blower" girl. Will Coke be able to free the girl?
Synopsis from OMDb
Details
- Director
- Christy Cabanne
- Writer
- Tod Browning
- Cinematography
- John W. Leezer
- Studio
- Triangle Film Corporation
- Released
- 1916-06-11
- Running time
- 25 minutes
Cast & crew
Christy Cabanne Director
Douglas Fairbanks
Bessie Love
Allan Sears
Tom Wilson
Alma Rubens
George Hall
William Lowery
Joe Murphy
Reviews on the Internet Archive
★★★★★ · hilarious · duderino629 · 2022-08-04
very funny stuff i love these old movies
★★★ · a real curio · Gov Bud Hudnut · 2020-12-06
Douglas Fairbanks plays a cocaine fiend who's also a successful detective (a la Sherlock Holmes) in this 1916 comedy. That audiences laughed at such goings on should give an indication of the relaxed public attitudes then prevailing with regard to drug use. Tod Browning, soon to become Lon Chaney's preferred director, supplies what script there is. On the whole, the film displays a breezy innocence towards its subject matter. In a few years and with the unfolding of several scandals in the film community, that blithe tolerance would be replaced by a moralistic censoriousness incorporated into…
