"The Mollycoddle" (1920) Douglas Fairbanks Sr. & Wallace Beery [United Artists] Victor Fleming

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Richard Marshall (Fairbanks), nicknamed The Mollycoddle by his friends, is the descendant of hard-hitting, fearless western stock, and although born in Arizona he has been raised since a child in England and acquired English ways. Upon meeting some Americans who are about to go home in a private yacht, he joins them. Fearing that Richard is a secret service operative, the owner of the yacht, who is smuggling diamonds into the United States, withdraws the invitation. Friends, however, smuggle him aboard and, when the owner discovers him, he is put to work shoveling coal in the boiler room. Off the coast of Texas he jumps ship and swims ashore, is picked up by a fishing net and eventually makes his way to Arizona, where the party is exploring the diamond mines. Richard discovers the plot to blow up a mountain and hem the party in a little valley. The scheme nearly succeeds, but Richard captures the smuggler in a tall tree, falls through the tree limbs and brawls with him down an extremely steep embankment into a river and over a falls, then drags the half-drowned man to shore. In addition, he of course wins the girl, who turns out to be a detective in service to Uncle Sam.

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