The Private Life of Don Juan

1934 · biography · comedy · drama · romance · Alexander Korda · London Film Productions

In his last film role, Douglas Fairbanks as an ageing legendary lady-killer Don Juan. It is set in Seville, Spain in centuries past, where once a young Don Juan caused ladies to swoon and jealous husbands to challenge him to a duel. After 20 years absence, he returns as a middle-aged married man feeling trapped by marriage and tempted to re-visit his old haunts. As it often happens with legends, however, the Don Juan of the past has become far greater and more wonderful in women's minds than he ever was, especially when a young imitator is killed (by a jealous husband) and mistaken for Don Juan. Then a book entitled 'the Private Life of Don Juan' is published and read by swooning women, and the whole thing is reminiscent of our real larger-than-life legends such as Elvis. And as with Elvis, whom we prefer to remember as young, slim and handsome, so Don Juan lives in women's minds so that the real middle-aged Don Juan is treated like a kindly father-figure by young women - much to his dismay!