COMING TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2003:
SPECIAL EVENT-
PRE-CODE CLARA BOW
She was The 'It' Girl, the first true movie sex symbol and the
hottest star of the Jazz Age. F. Scott Fitzgerald hailed her as "someone to
stir every pulse in the nation," and 100 million moviegoers (per week)
agreed. Clara Bow
(1905-1965) was born in Brooklyn poverty ("Just a woikin' goil," she would
say) to an abusive alcoholic father and a schizophrenic-epileptic mother. At
16 she won a fan magazine's "Fame and Fortune Contest," first prize a movie
role. By 1925, she was making fifteen movies a year and at the peak of her career
received 45,000 fan letters a month - still a record. But at twenty-five,
it was all over, the result of booze, scandal and a high-hatting Hollywood that
never accepted the brash Kid from Brooklyn. But as David
Stenn writes in his definitive biography, Clara
Bow: Runnin' Wild (now out in a new revised edition from Cooper Square
Press), "there was more to Clara than 'It.'" Looking beyond
her iconic stature as the Greatest Flapper of them all, here's a chance to revel
with one of the greatest natural talents in movie history.
NOTE: Ticket sales are based on our Double Features Ticket Sales Policy.
Presented with generous support from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
and the J.M. Kaplan Fund.Special thanks to Rusty Casselton & Ted Larson, Mike Mashon (Library of Congress), Bob O'Neil & Dave Oakden (Universal Pictures), Paolo Cherchi-Usai & Caroline Yeager (George Eastman House), Charles Hopkins (UCLA Film Archive), Joe Yranski, Peter Langs (IPMA), Doug Lemza (Criterion), Tom Toth, Brian Gari, Greg Ford, John Martello, David Packard (Stanford Theater Foundation), and Kit Parker.
All pre-1929 films are silent. Live piano accompaniment
by Steve Sterner at all showtimes followed by an asterisk
(*).
For Selections From Amazon.com
(1926, Victor Fleming)
Woman-hating divorce lawyer Percy Marmont treks off with
pal Eugene Pallette on a hunting trip to Mantrap Landing;
only trouble is, woodsman Ernest Torrence's wife is - Clara
Bow! Bow's first box-office smash was based on an obscure
novel by Sinclair Lewis. "She could flirt with a grizzly
bear." - New York Times.
Presented Again As Part Of Our GREAT AMERICAN
COMEDY Film Series in 2001.
(1932, John Francis Dillon) Bow returned to the screen with a vengeance after her 1931 breakdown as a Texas half-breed who takes a whip to childhood friend Gilbert Roland, brains the husband she married for spite with a stool, gets in a catfight with Thelma Todd, visits the screen's first bona fide gay bar, and romps with an excited Great Dane - and we don't mean Hamlet. "Enough melodrama for three movies." - Stenn.
2:20, 5:20, 8:30
Presented again as part of THE LADIES OF PRE-CODE
SERIES on Sun & Mon, June 17 & 18, 2000.
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(1926, Frank Tuttle) Tailor's helper turned golf caddie Eddie Cantor enlists horses, mules, airplanes, and autos to save his benefactor from a gold-digger after his inheritance, and to romance swimming instructor Clara Bow for himself. From Cantor's Broadway smash.
1:00, 4:10, 7:20*+
+7:20 show introduced by Eddie Cantor's grandson, Brian Gari.
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 7:20 PM screening.
(1929, Edward Sutherland) Salesgirl sisters Clara Bow and Jean Arthur battle over newly-promoted floorwalker James Hall, but when Arthur's gambling debts pile up, it's time for real-life aficionado Bow to start shooting those craps. Slang-packed early talkie, with Jean Harlow in a bit.
2:50, 6:00, 9:20THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID
Movie Poster Reproduction is one of many available at ACME Movie Posters.
EXTRA BONUS FOR CLARA BOW PATRONS!
Following the screening of KID BOOTS today we will be presenting an added program of cartoons: BILLBOARD FROLICS and SHUFFLE OFF TO BUFFALO, and a short: STOLEN JOOLS. This special added program will be preceded and followed by a brief intermission.RETURN TO TOP
(1925, Wesley Ruggles) "Hotsy-totsy," manhungry co-ed Clara and those darn jazz parties look to derail the campus career of ace track/ football star Donald Keith, but there may be a noble renunciation and big gridiron climax in store, as ex-fling Gilbert Roland (a Bow beau in real life, too) sticks in his oar as well. A box-office breakthrough for B.P. Schulberg's Preferred Pictures.
1:00, 4:00, 8:00*
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 8 PM screening.
THE PLASTIC AGE Movie Poster Reproductions is one
of many available at ACME Movie Posters.
(1930, Frank Tuttle) "I've had enough trouble with men without
marrying any!"
Movie star Clara, weary of her army of male suitors, escapes en train from Paris
to the Riviera for a madcap odyssey of mistaken identity and marital mishap. With
Charlie Ruggles. First NYC screening in 70 years.
2:30, 5:30, 9:50
(1925, J. G. Blystone) Clara's a righteous rancher in this Tom Mix oater, recently
restored by Rusty Casselton and Ted Larson from the sole surviving print - discovered
in the Czech Republic!
7:00*
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 7 PM screening.
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(1927, William Wellman) Clara loves Buddy Rogers, but Buddy - and pal Richard
Arlen - loves planes, and all get their fill when the US of A enters WWI. William
Wellman's Oscar winner - the very first to nab Best Picture - is a super-spectacle,
with hair-raising aerial footage matched with massive battle recreations, their
authenticity guaranteed by real-life flyboy vets Wellman, Arlen, and writer John
Monk Saunders.
NOTE: We are showing the Library of Congress' print of WINGS, which contains
40 minutes more footage and has superior pictur quality, but it does not
have a synchronized score as originally noted. 1:00, 5:00, 9:00*
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 9 PM screening.
WINGS Movie Poster Reproduction is one of
many available at ACME Movie Posters
(1926, Herbert Brenon) Dancing daughter Clara (as "Kitten Westcourt") steals the
show as mom Alice Joyce, stuck with a cheating husband, tries to break up Bow's
romance with Conway Tearle, only to find... Jazz Age soap with a biting feminist
twist.
3:30, 7:30*
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 7:30 PM screening.
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(1927, Victor Fleming) "You
ain't seen it all till you watch Clara Bow do her naughty wiggle!"
Hawaiian girl Bow resorts to nude swimming, drunken dancing, and dynamite to win
stiff-upper-lipped, married engineer Clive Brook. A field day for Bow watchers
and the censors.
1:40*, 4:20, 8:00*, 10:30
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 1:40 PM & the
8 PM screenings.
HULA Movie Poster Reproduction is one of
many available at ACME Movie Posters
(1929, Dorothy
Arzner) Co-ed crushes don't faze serious Anthro prof Fredric March, but there's
a bullet in store when he has to rescue flirtatious student Clara Bow in her talkie
debut. "Her infantile sexuality is high voltage." - Pauline Kael.
2:50, 5:30, 9:10
THE WILD PARTY Movie Poster Reproduction
is one of many available at ACME Movie Posters
RUNNIN' WILD: AN ILLUSTRATED TALK
David Stenn, author of the acclaimed bio Clara
Bow: Runnin' Wild, will present this tribute to Clara using slides of
never-before-seen photos and memorabilia from Bow's personal collection.
7:00
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(1927, Clarence Badger) Clara and fellow shopgirls decide uptight boss Antonio
Moreno has IT, and then the campaign begins, complete with fake motherhood, yacht
wreck, and a watery rescue. The smash hit that vaulted Bow to superstardom, from
"Brooklyn Bonfire" to "IT Girl," with newcomer/boyfriend Gary Cooper lurking in
the background and Madame Elinor Glyn, author of the immortal original, as herself.
1:10, 4:05, 7:00*, 9:40
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 7 PM screening.
(1929, Lothar Mendes) Circus rider Clara loves aerialist Richard Arlen who loves
his partner Kay Francis who loves... A fall from the high wire, a Bow/Arlen comedy
act, hard boozing, and good use of that Brooklyn accent highlight this rarely-seen
dramedy. "Visually inventive, briskly paced and loaded with appropriate, atmospheric
lingo." - Stenn.
2:35, 5:30, 8:25
DANGEROUS CURVES Movie Poster Reproduction
is one of many available at ACME Movie Poster
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(1933, Frank Lloyd) Carny barker Preston Foster warns farm boy son Richard Cromwell
about cooch dancer Clara (good tip!) - she's already taking a bet she can make
him 'fall in love with her.' In her wildly underrated swan song, Bow sports the
"scantiest raiment she ever wore on the screen" (Film Daily). Rare 35mm print
courtesy George Eastman House.
3:30, 6:25, 9:20
|
(1927) Since they're both children of broken homes, Esther Ralston demands
Gary Cooper must prove himself before their marriage - but then he meets
Clara. Rare tragic conclusion for Bow, in a film reshot by Josef von Sternberg.
This sole surviving print comes from the Library of Congress.
2:10,
5:05*, 8:00*
*Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner at the 5:05 PM &
the 8 PM screening. |
CHILDREN OF DIVORCE
Movie Poster Reproduction
is one of many
available at ACME Movie Poster |
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Selections From Amazon.com
Questions/Comments? E-mail
Film Forum. Box Office: 212-727-8110. Repertory screen
is programmed by Bruce Goldstein. (Schedule subject to change). ©
2002, The Moving Image, Inc. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted without
permission.
Website Manager: Richard
J. Hutchins. This page was last updated on
January 30, 2003
