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Clara Bow

It's the Bookworm! And not that one from Batman either!

1905 - 1965

...on video!

She worked hard for her 50$ a week when she first started out, even though casting directors often told her she was too short and too fat. She made tons of movies, most of which she considered embarrassing, but people knew her as that scandalous "It" girl.
Her father encouraged her to enter a "be a star" contest, and she won! Her Brooklynese accent was not a burden to her in the sound era... Instead she was plagued with scandal; especially when an employee of hers was convicted of embezzling from her -- and then turned around and sold the whole "story" to early Hollywood's answer to Hard Copy!
Almost all of her sound films seem to be around, but they are all still copyrighted. Those who own those copyrights are just sitting on them. Some of these rather perverse plots will give you an idea as to why they instituted the Production Code in Hollywood, hmm....

This is the filmography as we've been able to ascertain:

1922 Beyond the Rainbow
1922 Down to the Sea in Ship
1923 The Daring Years
1923 The Enemies of Women (bit part)
1923 Maytime
1924 Black
1924 Black Lightning
1924 Black Oxen
1924 Daughters of Pleasure
1924 Empty Hearts
1924 Grit
1924 Helen's Babies
1924 Poisoned Paradise
1924 This Woman
1924 Wine
1925 The Adventurous Sex
1925 The Ancient Mariner
1925 The Best Bad Man
1925 Capital Punishment
1925 Eve's Lover
1925 Free to Love
1925 The Keeper of the Bees
1925 Kiss Me Again
1925 Lawful Cheaters
1925 My Lady of Whims
1925 My Lady's Lips
1925 Parisian Love
1925 The Plastic Age
1925 The Primrose Path
1925 The Scarlet West
1926 Dancing Mothers
1926 Fascinating Youth
1926 Kid Boots
1926 Mantrap
1926 The Runaway
1926 The Shadow of the Law
1926 Two Can Play
1927 Children of Divorce
1927 Get Your Man
1927 Hula
1927 It
1927 Rough House Rosie
1927 Wings
1928 The Fleet's In
1928 Ladies of the Mob
1928 Red Hair
1928 Three Week-Ends
1929 Dangerous Curves
1929 The Saturday Night Kid
1929 The Wild Party (her first soundie)
1930 Her Wedding Night
1930 Love Among the Millionaires
1930 Paramount on Parade
1930 True to the Navy
1931 Kick In
1931 No Limit
1932 Call Her Savage
1933 Hoopla

The sad thing is, there are the only few of her silent pictures left out of almost 50 films. There is an indie company with good prints on most of the sound ones; but they cannot be put out until they enter the public domain. Her first soundie, directed by Dorothy Arzner, was out at one point but I'm pretty sure it is no longer on the market. We'll post here if we hear any different. The Clara Bow films that are available are on PD labels; but I've seen copies of their recent tapes and the prints are wonderful!
A special exception is the release of Parisian Love, which was only just found in celluloid form. One of the guys who runs the Pordenone Silent Fest in Italy is Paolo Cherchi Usai. I just finished his BFI book Burning Passions, about the trials and tribulations of silent film archiving, and this quote from page 32 says it all: "Did you know that large collections of silent films were found in an abandoned swimming-pool in the Yukon, in a barn in Illinois, in the flea-markets of a remote French province, and that an extraordinary work, Kurutta Ippeiji (A Page of Madness, 1926), was found, in 1971, in the garden of the house where the director, Teinosuke Kinugasa, had lived?" My only qualification would be, hey, you left out the proverbial warehouse in New Jersey!!
-- Steve

The box cover for the new doc!

It Vids

Discovering the It Girl (1999) Leave it to Hugh Hefner to have Courtney Love narrate this new cable doc, an expansion of biographer David Stenn's 1988 work Runnin' Wild. Stenn, Paramount producer Budd Schulberg, Leonard Maltin and Clara's son Rex Bell Jr. all contribute towards bringing her memory to life. (65 mins., $24.99)

These $24.99 releases at the top of the list are the newest, as of 8/3/99...
The features all run $19.99 or $24.99 each, and are silent and B/W, with film scores.

Parisian Love (1925) The 1998 Pordenone Silent Film Festival presented the sole surviving print of what was once thought to be a forever-lost film! Director Louis Gasnier oversaw Bow's many costume changes as she attempts to seduce the man who killed her lover. (tinted, 62 mins., $24.99)
Helen's Babies (1924) Our fave star is flanked by the likes of Baby Peggy and Edward Everett Horton in this early comedy! (length n/a, $19.99)
The Plastic Age/Run Girl Run This version is a new and improved (tinted, 73 min., $24.99) copy of the feature, combined with a rather tenuously related, 20-minute Mack Sennett romp from 1928 starring Carole Lombard.
IT (1927) The Famous-Players-Lasky trendsetter; directed by Clarence Badger; remastered etc. by Kino. (72 min., $24.99)
Capital Punishment (1926) A young man may be wrongly executed after a wealthy man's wager goes awry - and Clara is his widow-to-be! Very rare; pristine print; new! (67 min., $19.99)
Down To The Sea In Ships (1922) Bow plays a stowaway on a whaling ship in her debut; notable for its atmospheric cinematography. (83 min., $19.99)
Free To Love (1925) Frank O'Conner directed Bow, playing an ex-con whose adoptive father is murdered. (61 min., $19.99)
My Lady Of Whims (1925) Donald Keith plays a PI hired to keep an eye on a rambunctious Bow, and boy does he... (44 min., $19.99)
Dancing Mothers (1925) Alice Joyce is the wayward mom, and Clara her equally bratty daughter, in a story of marital betrayal set on a cruise ship. (66 min., $19.99)
Mantrap (1926) This odd Victor Fleming story has manchasing Bow trying to cool off in the Far North. (66 min., $19.99)
Hula (1928) Clive Brook is the leading man in this story of love and adventure in the South Seas. (64 min., $19.99)
Wings (1927) The first Oscar-winner, an adventure of two air pilots and their rivalry. Clara is the object of their affections; co-starring with Buddy Rogers and Gary Cooper. (139 min., $19.99)

We don't have or sell film stills, though folks have asked. There are a bunch on the Web but so many only offer newer star photos and movie posters online. However the Movie Poster Shop, 1314 S. Grand Blvd., Suite 2-158, Spokane WA 99202, sells 8X10s for $5 each and 16X20s for $15 each ($5 per order for postage) of the following Clara Bow publicity photos from her heyday: #63767 - half figure, in shiny dress; #62027 - portrait in round cutout; #60676 - backlit portrait, looking sad; #60180 - long shot with wreath; #9265 - full figure against deco furniture; #5845 - half figure with gloves, looking away; #5062 - on phone looking tense. All are B/W. We got a letter from the guy who runs the business over a year ago, but the thumbnails were tiny and xeroxed so we can't post them. I can hardly make out the details, and though I can guess which movies they're from I can't say for sure. I haven't kept in touch, so I can't be sure about this info, overall. You may want to write a letter with SASE first.

Last updated July 11, 1999.

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