The Gaucho


The Gaucho is a 1927 silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks and Lupe Vélez set in Argentina. The lavish adventure extravaganza, filmed at the height of Fairbanks' box office clout, was directed by F. Richard Jones with a running time of 115 minutes.
Fairbanks biographer Jeffrey Vance considers the film "a near masterwork" and "an anomaly among his works." Vance also considers it a "daring departure, the film is an effort of unanticipated darkness in tone, setting, and character. The spirit of adolescent boyish adventure, the omnipresent characteristic of his prior films, is noticeably absent. It has been replaced by a spiritual fervor and an element of seething sexuality the likes of which has never been seen before in one of his productions.”

Cast

A new preservation print of The Gaucho, created by the Museum of Modern Art, was first shown at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2008. It has subsequently been screened at MoMA, and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival to promote the new book Douglas Fairbanks with author Jeffrey Vance introducing the screenings.
The nickname for the sports teams of the University of California-Santa Barbara is The Gauchos in honor of Fairbanks' acting in the eponymous film.