As everyone knows, the motion-picture drama has been a tawdry thing for the most part--either a rehash of old stage plays, novels, and short stories, or else mediocre "originalities" that epitomized banality.

Young Mr.
Fairbanks dissented from the established custom from the very start.
"It's all wrong," he declared.

"We've got to stand on our own feet.
Develop your own dramatists!" Practically every play in which he has appeared sprang from his personal suggestion, and in many of them he has collaborated with the scenario writer.

The three things that he demands are Action, Wholesomeness, and Sentiment that rings true.
Never make the mistake of thinking that Douglas Fairbanks starts and finishes with mere good humor and physical exuberance.

There is more to him than his grin, for his mind is as strong and vigorous as his body.
He reads and thinks, and behind his smile is a quick and eager sympathy that takes account of the sadnesses of life as well as its promises.
"The Habit of Happiness" was very much his own idea, and in it he took occasion to show a midnight bread-line, the misery of the slums, and various forms of social injustice.