A cult film has a passionate fan base which is built over time after its initial release. These movies usually have a tepid response by both critics and theater audiences when first released, but upon subsequent showings, viewers react positively to either their unappreciated great craftsmanship, their inferior quality which are laughable, or their totally bizarre and off-the-wall subject matters which are unintentionally hilarious.
Cinema's earliest recognizable cult film, which lead actor Douglas Fairbanks hated and wanted the movie out of immediate circulation, was June 1916's "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish." Fairbanks plays a cocaine addicted detective on the trail of an opium smuggling operation which uses the insides of inflatable floats to transport illicit drugs. Contained in "The Mystery" is a subtle lampooning of Sherlock Holmes, with Fairbanks wearing the detective's exaggerated checkered deerstalker hat and trenchcoat.
"The Mystery" is the first movie to show a futuristic closed circuit TV monitor, described in the titles as a "scientific periscope." Also, excessive drug use is continuously displayed, especially by Coke Ennyday, Fairbanks' character. Repeatedly shooting up cocaine and numerous samplings of the smugglers' opium in utter delight, the detective is super-hyperkinetic in his pursuit of his quarry. The lighthearted exhibition of drug use in "The Mystery" reflected the United States' still open season for cocaine and other opiates, despite the passage of the Harrison Act of 1915, the first substantial law enforcement bill to suppress the now illicit drugs. The Pennsylvania Censor Board came down hard on the film, disallowing it to be shown. But it would be 14 more years before the Hays Code, Hollywood's self-regulation standards of taste, clamped down on such comical portrayals of drug use.
Screenwriter Tod Browning, later director of 1931's "Dracula," wrote the basis of the story shortly after the car he was driving was struck by a train while he was crossing railroad tracks. Elmer Booth, a frequent D. W. Griffith actor who was planned for a major role in the director's "Intolerance," died in the crash. Alcohol or fog were attributed to the accident, which sent Browning to the hospital.
Anita Loos, Hollywood's first female contracted scriptwriter, filled in Browning's story with the wacky incidents portrayed in "The Mystery." Loos helped shape Fairbanks' screen persona, where she recognized the actor's athletic abilities. In "The Mystery," his physical attributes are a harbinger of his later, more famous roles as an adventurous swashbuckler. Her five scripts she wrote for Fairbanks during this period made him a star. The actor brought her and director and her future husband, John Emerson, who directed "The Mystery," with him when he signed on with the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation later in the year.
Cinema's earliest recognizable cult film, which lead actor Douglas Fairbanks hated and wanted the movie out of immediate circulation, was June 1916's "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish." Fairbanks plays a cocaine addicted detective on the trail of an opium smuggling operation which uses the insides of inflatable floats to transport illicit drugs. Contained in "The Mystery" is a subtle lampooning of Sherlock Holmes, with Fairbanks wearing the detective's exaggerated checkered deerstalker hat and trenchcoat.
"The Mystery" is the first movie to show a futuristic closed circuit TV monitor, described in the titles as a "scientific periscope." Also, excessive drug use is continuously displayed, especially by Coke Ennyday, Fairbanks' character. Repeatedly shooting up cocaine and numerous samplings of the smugglers' opium in utter delight, the detective is super-hyperkinetic in his pursuit of his quarry. The lighthearted exhibition of drug use in "The Mystery" reflected the United States' still open season for cocaine and other opiates, despite the passage of the Harrison Act of 1915, the first substantial law enforcement bill to suppress the now illicit drugs. The Pennsylvania Censor Board came down hard on the film, disallowing it to be shown. But it would be 14 more years before the Hays Code, Hollywood's self-regulation standards of taste, clamped down on such comical portrayals of drug use.
Screenwriter Tod Browning, later director of 1931's "Dracula," wrote the basis of the story shortly after the car he was driving was struck by a train while he was crossing railroad tracks. Elmer Booth, a frequent D. W. Griffith actor who was planned for a major role in the director's "Intolerance," died in the crash. Alcohol or fog were attributed to the accident, which sent Browning to the hospital.
Anita Loos, Hollywood's first female contracted scriptwriter, filled in Browning's story with the wacky incidents portrayed in "The Mystery." Loos helped shape Fairbanks' screen persona, where she recognized the actor's athletic abilities. In "The Mystery," his physical attributes are a harbinger of his later, more famous roles as an adventurous swashbuckler. Her five scripts she wrote for Fairbanks during this period made him a star. The actor brought her and director and her future husband, John Emerson, who directed "The Mystery," with him when he signed on with the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation later in the year.