Down to Earth (1917 film)


Down to Earth, also known as The Optimist, is a 1917 American comedy romance film starring Douglas Fairbanks and Eileen Percy, and directed by John Emerson. Most of the principal photography was filmed in Yosemite National Park.

Synopsis

Bill Gaynor follows Ethel, the girl he loves, to a sanitarium she is staying to recuperate from a nervous break down. Ethel had previously refused his proposal in favor of a socialite, Charles Riddles. Bill hatches up a plan to save Ethel and the other hypochondriacs from the sanitarium, taking them on his yacht through the ruse of a smallpox scare. The yacht crashes onto an island, where Bill makes the invalids work for their own food and where they all overcome their illnesses. Upon discovering that Palm Beach is in the valley below them, Ethel and Charley go out to a party, but Ethel yearns for the natural life of the camp. She returns to Bill, finally accepting his offer for marriage.

Cast