Stephen Steps Out (1923)

Paramount gave their newest star, an adolescent Douglas Fairbanks Jr., every advantage in his film debut. As support, young Fairbanks had some of the best talent from the studio's stock company, including renowned scene-stealer Theodore Roberts and Harry Myers, who had recently impressed in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The young actor himself received polite notices for his performance as Stephen Harlow Jr., who fails a class in Turkish history, and, as a result, can't graduate from college. His irate father, Stephen Sr. (Roberts), who has endowed the college, sends his boy to Turkey to learn some history firsthand and fires the professor, Mr. Gilman (James O. Barrows). When he discovers that professor Gilman has been discharged, Stephen Jr. becomes determined to get him his job back -- but first he gets involved in a Turkish revolution, led by the villainous Muley Pasha (Noah Beery Sr.), and rescues the sultan's son (Pat Moore). For his heroic acts, Stephen Jr. receives the Grand Cross of the Crescent, and he sends it to Gilman, claiming that it is for books he wrote on Turkish history. The college, seeing that Gilman is a man of prominence and distinction, reinstates him, and Stephen returns home to a proud father. This film was based on Richard Harding Davis' adventure story The Grand Cross of the Crescent. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi