"I can never take for granted the euphoria produced by a cup of coffee. I'm grateful every day that it isn't banned as a drug, that I don't have to buy it from a pusher, that its cost is minimal and there's no need to increase the intake. I can count on its stimulation 365 mornings every year. And thanks to the magic in a cup of coffee, I'm able to plunge into a whole day's cheerful thinking." Screenwriter Anita Loos

Anita Loos and her husband, director John Emerson, collaborated with Douglas Fairbanks on a number of his early films. "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" is the most unusual example of their work. Loos wrote the titles, while the story is from Tod Browning.

The drug featured in the film is not coffee, however, but cocaine. Fairbanks was reportedly unhappy with the picture and distanced himself from it. He did manage to hang on to some of the props, though. I own a picture of Fairbanks, taken at his home Pickfair in the 1920s, which shows him swimming with one of the inflatable "leaping fish" from the movie.

There is not much news from the contemporary world of film as most production has been shut down due to the pandemic. The owners of movie theaters have switched to streaming in order to maintain a source of revenue. While current releases such as Leigh Whannell's "The Invisible Man" are streaming with high rental fees, there is free content available. HBO is streaming twenty films from Warner Bros. for free. Austin's SXSW Film Festival, cancelled due to COVID-19, struck a deal with Amazon to screen its films free for Prime members. Artists cannot survive on "free", however, so I hope normalcy returns when it is safe to do so. Stay well.

Connect with me on Twitter at AngelaKPeterso1.


Here's the latest article from the Drama Movies site at BellaOnline.com.

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish Film Review
Not for the faint-of-heart, this addition to my Guilty Pleasures series is a madcap drug farce starring Douglas Fairbanks. My review highlights a rarely discussed aspect of Tod Browning's scenario.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art306967.asp

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