Reaching for the Moon (1917) User Reviews

Vulgarian Fairbanks

[Cineanalyst · 6/10 · 31 December 2009]

In "Reaching for the Moon", Douglas Fairbanks is more pitiful than in his other modern comedies and carries a morose and worried look through much of the picture. There isn't as much of his usual pep and smile here. Fairbanks plays a discontented office worker who spends much of his time star struck over royalty, which interferes with his career and with his getting the girl. He dreams that he inherits the throne of the fictional European country Vulgaria, which oddly looks like Venice (Los Angeles). With attempts on his life to move the line of succession and an unwanted arranged marriage, Doug discovers that being king isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Similar royal succession scenarios were used for Fairbanks's "The Americano" (1916) and "His Majesty, the American" (1919).

"Reaching for the Moon" is entertaining enough and worth watching because it's available in quality condition along with other early Fairbanks films in the Flicker Alley box set, but I don't think it's one of his better comedies. On the other hand, it's evident that Fairbanks's films had become more polished since he entered the business only a couple years earlier, which is also true of films in general during the period.

An American in Vulgaria

[MissSimonetta · 7/10 · 29 January 2023]

A daydreaming romantic hooked on self-help books yearns to be someone of importance-- say, a king. His fantasies interfere with his ability to appreciate what he does have: a decent job and a loving girlfriend who's a lot more patient with his flights of fancy than most people would be. What happens when our young dreamer finds out he's a long-lost member of royalty? Will he thrive or will the high life turn out to be a dangerous, unpleasant nightmare?

You can probably guess what the final result will be, but with Fairbanks, the fun is in the journey. REACHING FOR THE MOON isn't exceptional, but it is light and fun. I enjoyed a lot of the gags and Fairbanks' character arc is pretty fun, with him becoming more and more cynical over the course of his adventure.

Reaching for the Moon review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 7 May 2020]

Lowly clerk Douglas Fairbanks finds that the life of royal privilege of which he has dreamed isn't all it's cracked up to be when he is identified as heir to the throne of Vulgaria. An entertaining enough light comedy from early in Fairbanks' career that never quite seems to realise the potential in its storyline. Fairbanks' likeability carries much of the picture.

Likeable silent film about a factory worker who wants to be famous

[riv-2 · 8/10 · 27 December 2000]

This likeable film stars Douglas Fairbanks. He's a button factory office worker, who daydreams about being in the company of kings. His workmates regard him as a likeable twit. - Thing is that one morning, he wakes up to find that he is the only surviving relative of a small European country's monarchy. - He's about to be crowned King! (But the evil "Black Boris" has other ideas. Definitely worth a look. This film was made in the latter stages of WW1 - and it shows. Douglas Fairbanks was a great actor. Give this film a whirl, if you get the chance. Ian Rivlin

A Button factory worker dreams of walking with kings

[riv-2 · 8/10 · 23 December 2000]

Alexis is a likeable Walter Mitty type, who constantly dreams of mixing with royalty. He has a love - Elsie, who listens to his dreams attentively. Alexis finds a very big surprise for him one morning - He's the last line of a Royal family and the successor to the throne of "Vulgaria"!!(An Austro/Italian/Hungarian monarchy). For anyone who saw "The Great Race" with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, they'll perhaps find the same sort of laughs from this film. - Reaching for the Moon isn't a comedy per-se but there are many humorous moments. I think the moral of the film is "America's democracy is better than anything that the European degenerates have". - Maybe they're right- but this film WAS made in the First World War, when anti Kaiser Wilhelm sentiment would have been at its greatest. I just saw this film tonight (for the first time) on my Standard 8 projector. - Somehow it looked the appropriate medium to view the film on...

Reaching for the moon, and catching it, can be dangerous...

[binapiraeus · 9/10 · 20 September 2014]

Alexis Caesar Napoleon Brown (Douglas Fairbanks), on the one hand a modest office employee, on the other hand is, as his names suggest (and he's got busts and pictures of his two great statesman idols in his apartment), the son of a mysterious European lady, from whom all he's got left is an old picture (she'd died when he was born) - and the dream that he might belong to some old aristocratic family... And so he reads books about how to make your dreams come true, and keeps talking about them with his girlfriend Elsie (Eileen Percy, who starred together with Doug Fairbanks in quite some of his early films, and they always made a very fine match), who listens patiently, showing interest and understanding - but also warns him that, when dreaming about a beautiful future, he shouldn't set his hopes TOO high...

And yet - one morning, a foreign gentleman comes to visit him; and to tell him that he actually IS the heir to the throne of the small European kingdom of Vulgaria (and what a name, too...)! So he leaves immediately, accompanied by the gentleman who explains to him that there is another pretender to the throne called 'Black Boris', who's got his spies everywhere, and they've got to be VERY careful until he'll reach 'his' kingdom and be officially crowned... And so, when he finds himself in the middle of aristocratic intrigues, Alexis very soon finds out that being a prince isn't AT ALL the way he'd dreamed of!

For the second time after "The Americano", Doug Fairbanks mixes comedy and political drama in a most successful and hilarious way; this time he plays it 'earnest' (and what a cute day-dreamer he makes!), while the 'statesmen' of the strange little kingdom act all the more funny! The scenery resembles Venice, the palace Paris or Vienna, while the population of the fictional kingdom is more Balkan-like (by the time the film was made, the USA had entered WWI, and so by now the depiction of a European country had changed, of course, with something definitely threatening about it) - and amidst all the schemes and intrigues, there remains a LOT of room for Doug's famous comedy and acrobatics... A really enjoyable movie, action-packed and fast-paced, and certainly VERY unusual, a (today) much-underrated classic among the Hollywood silents of the 1910s!