The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) is a short film starring Douglas Fairbanks and Bessie Love. In this unusually broad comedy for Fairbanks, the acrobatic leading man plays “Coke Ennyday,” a cocaine-shooting detective parody of Sherlock Holmes given to injecting himself with cocaine from a bandoleer of syringes worn across his chest and liberally helping himself to the contents of a hatbox-sized round container of white powder labeled “COCAINE” on his desk. The movie, written by D.W. Griffith, Tod Browning, and Anita Loos, displays a surreal lighthearted attitude toward cocaine and opium. Fairbanks otherwise lampoons Sherlock Holmes with checkered … Continue reading The Mystery of the Leaping Fish