American Aristocracy

American Aristocracy is a 1916 silent comedy-adventure directed by Lloyd Ingraham for the Fine Arts Film Company, with a story by Anita Loos and Douglas Fairbanks in the lead. Fairbanks plays Cassius Lee, a young entomologist and all-round egalitarian who tangles with a piratical arms smuggler while trying to win the heart of a rich man's daughter. The film gently satirizes American social climbing and the cult of European-style aristocracy, with Fairbanks doing his own stunts and radiating the athletic good humor that defined his early features. Produced under the Triangle banner, it is preserved at George Eastman House and is in the public domain.