One of Fairbanks' first comedies for United Artists (thecompany he founded along with Chaplin, Pickford and Griffith), When theClouds Roll By combined Fairbanks, the "popular philosopher"of his early Artcraft films, with Fairbanks, the spectacle-maker(notably in the surrealistic dream sequence and in the disastrous floodscene, through which he swims and dives). Writing in 1949, AlistairCooke noted, "These comedies parodied with no discernible time-lagthe pattern of a new social scene we now take for granted. In twenty-oddfilms, the Fairbanks screen character flattered Joe Nobody's ability tomeet and throw every affectation of the day and to have sensible ideason a lot of topics a layman should know nothing about. This picture is askit on the dubious profession of 'psychoanalyst,' a new word in 1919and one that covered in the public mind more naive and lurid cures thanFreud or Adler had ever dreamed. Technically, it is one of the mostinventive of all Fairbanks films. The slow-motion chase is about thebest gymnastic section of all the early comedies...." When theClouds Roll By delighted audiences at the 1988 silent film festival atPordenone, Italy.