quiet_curiosity (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
quiet_curiosity) wrote2009-03-18 10:49 pm
quiet_curiosity) wrote2009-03-18 10:49 pm
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A Fool There Was (1915)
It was exactly as I thought it would be - only funnier.
Summary: The vamp is on the prowl and even the goody two-shoes men are no match for her charms.
1) So, Theda Bara - Vamp Extraordinaire and Original Hollywood Sex Symbol? I'm not impressed. She wasn't the worst actor there - not by a long shot - but I just couldn't click with her. I couldn't look at her and believe that at least five various men were willing to ruin their lives for her. This isn't a "she's too chubby to be a sex symbol" thing. That's the standard insult lobbed at Bara and her place in film history. How does it stand out here? Sometimes she looked horrible and sometimes she looked pretty good. Most of the problems stemmed from the hair, makeup, and clothes section rather than just plain body type. No, this was more of a "This character is too much of a crazy bitch for me to think that anyone would stick around for more than a few days" kind of thing. Because, seriously, the Vamp (no real name given) was a crazy bitch to everyone: lovers, servants, random children.
2) It's a pretty primitive seeming feature. There was no camera movement and the lighting was often horrible (the age of the print perhaps factored in). And the structure was pretty haphazard. We don't really see the Vamp ruin John Schuyler. We see her plant a seed for destruction (though we don't necessarily see John go through with it) and then - BOOM - he's under her possession or an alcoholic. Nothing really progressed in an organic way.
3) Bara's clothes are just terrible. They're very Victorian-Madam-Meets-Circus-Clown.
4) Around 8 minutes in... I could not stop laughing.
For some reason, I feel like I should have a more eloquent - or at least verbose - reaction to this movie. But I don't. Perhaps it didn't click with me because I don't have much experience with older silent features? Perhaps it really is from a time that I just cannot relate to? Either way, I didn't like it but didn't have the same kind of visceral loathing for it that I had for Beyond the Rocks. It's a significant (or at least semi-significant) piece of film history and one of the few Theda Bara movies that we still know to exist. I have now viewed it and will happily never view it again.
Summary: The vamp is on the prowl and even the goody two-shoes men are no match for her charms.
1) So, Theda Bara - Vamp Extraordinaire and Original Hollywood Sex Symbol? I'm not impressed. She wasn't the worst actor there - not by a long shot - but I just couldn't click with her. I couldn't look at her and believe that at least five various men were willing to ruin their lives for her. This isn't a "she's too chubby to be a sex symbol" thing. That's the standard insult lobbed at Bara and her place in film history. How does it stand out here? Sometimes she looked horrible and sometimes she looked pretty good. Most of the problems stemmed from the hair, makeup, and clothes section rather than just plain body type. No, this was more of a "This character is too much of a crazy bitch for me to think that anyone would stick around for more than a few days" kind of thing. Because, seriously, the Vamp (no real name given) was a crazy bitch to everyone: lovers, servants, random children.
2) It's a pretty primitive seeming feature. There was no camera movement and the lighting was often horrible (the age of the print perhaps factored in). And the structure was pretty haphazard. We don't really see the Vamp ruin John Schuyler. We see her plant a seed for destruction (though we don't necessarily see John go through with it) and then - BOOM - he's under her possession or an alcoholic. Nothing really progressed in an organic way.
3) Bara's clothes are just terrible. They're very Victorian-Madam-Meets-Circus-Clown.
4) Around 8 minutes in... I could not stop laughing.
For some reason, I feel like I should have a more eloquent - or at least verbose - reaction to this movie. But I don't. Perhaps it didn't click with me because I don't have much experience with older silent features? Perhaps it really is from a time that I just cannot relate to? Either way, I didn't like it but didn't have the same kind of visceral loathing for it that I had for Beyond the Rocks. It's a significant (or at least semi-significant) piece of film history and one of the few Theda Bara movies that we still know to exist. I have now viewed it and will happily never view it again.