When Thief Meets Thief

Jump For Glory was the last film on the Fairbanks sabbatical in the United Kingdom before father and son returned to the USA. For the senior Douglas Fairbanks it was retirement, for the son he got a juicy part in Prisoner Of Zenda which led to many more.

This film finds Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., a cat burglar with a price on his head from the USA who is now in Monte Carlo where people are known to flaunt their wealth, the better to steal it. He runs into Valerie Hobson who is to be married to Alan Hale. He's a stockbroker, but Fairbanks knows him for the skunk he really is as he was his partner who left him holding the bag.

A quarter of a century later this same plot gambit would be used by Marlon Brando for One Eyed Jacks. It works out just about the same for Fairbanks as it does for Brando.

Fairbanks, Hale, and director Raoul Walsh were all over from America for this one. The rest of the cast is British players, among them Leo Genn whose unforgettable voice you'll hear as a Crown attorney in a courtroom scene.

The best film that Fairbanks did across the pond in the Thirties is Catherine The Great with Elizabeth Bergner. This one suffers from some botched editing, no doubt for television broadcast in the USA.

Maybe we'll see a restored version at some point and the film might get better.