Theda Bara's name still rings a bell for some people. She was the iconic vamp of the silent era. Also she portrayed iconic characters such as Juliet (from Romeo & Juliet), Camille, Carmen, Madame Du Barry, Salome, all of them still popular and, at each new incarnation, her name is often brought up as a pioneer, even though few have actually seen her films since most of them are lost and those that are preserved are not necessarily the best ones and are usually presented in a very poor shape.As a matter of fact, she played her most famous role in one of the most sought-after lost film: Cleopatra. Not often is a lost film so well illustrated to this day: tons of production photographs can be found on the internet or in various books. Joseph Mankiewick's version starring Elizabeth Taylor is actually a remake of this film, even though it was already lost by then.
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| Cleopatra |
However, for this particular film, I found out that its first European premiere happened in Paris on January 30, 1920 at the Mogador Palace. For the occasion, a 40 piece orchestra played an especially written score by Paul Letombe. It took me a while to realize it since the film was not called Cléopâtre as one could expect. In the magazine "Ciné pour tous" and in every newspaper commenting the event (Le Petit Parisien, Le Figaro, etc.), the film is clearly advertized as La Reine des Césars [Queen of Caesars]. I can only guess what other titles were used throughout Europe. There is still hope to find a copy under some unexpected title after all!
On April 2, the film move to the Demours theater and it took another month (May 3rd, 1920) to reach Algiers.
So far, only a fragment of the film has been recovered, and in very poor shape, too:
Another fragment was thought to be from this film for a time, but it happened to be from another Fox epic with a similar cast and crew called Queen of Sheba. As a matter of fact, this film was supposed to star Theda Bara before she left the studio and she was replaced by Betty Blythe who wore equally revealing costumes.
However, Theda Bara cannot be summed up with Cleopatra alone. She wasn't the first to portrait the Queen, nor was she the first to play all of her famous roles. But she often was the first to play them in luxurious American feature films. At the time, movie studios kept their actors voluntarily anonymous so that they wouldn't demand higher salaries as they grew more famous. The few who reached fame had gained their way progressively as they had been eventually recognized film after film.
Unlike them, Theda became an overnight sensation, the first manufactured star thanks to her association with William Fox, whose studio was nearly going bankrupt and needed a publicity stunt to change his luck.
As most film actors of the time, she started her career on the East coast, at Fort Lee. After a debut under her real name, Theodosia Goodman, as a fake nurse (actually a gangster's moll) in The Stain, she starred in A Fool There Was, and became The Vampire, a bad woman who lured married men to their doom. Amazingly, these films, directed by Frank Powell, are two of the six films (out of 40) that are still extant today (A Fool There Was is even available on DVD).
The term "vamp" was coined for her and she was typecast to cash in the extraordinary publicity around her persona. A whole legend was spread through newspapers and studio publicity about her origins (more specifically when Cleopatra was released, when her named was conveniently revealed to be an anagram for "Arab Death"). In 1917, the Goodman family legally changed their name to Bara.
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| Carmen |
In The Serpent, she played yet another vamp. With director Herbert Brenon, she did more films with such roles, and also adaptations of classics: The Two Orphans, Alexander Dumas' The Clemenceau Case and Kreutzer Sonata from Tolstoi. That same year, she also stars in an adaptation Emile Zola's Labor called Destruction, which will be released in France 5 years later as La ravageuse.
With The Galley Slave, she started a collaboration with the director that would work on most of her films: J. Gordon Edwards, grand father of director Blake Edwards.
In 1916, she did East Lynne (still extant) with director Bertram Bracken, and a steamy version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with Edwards (which had yet again to face a rival production from Metro). For him, she also became Esmeralda in a 1917 adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris called The Darling of Paris and Camille from Alexandre Dumas's novel La dame aux camélias.
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| French poster for Madame Du Barry |
Then came Cleopatra, for which she was asked to move to California, where the new studios were operating, and Madame Du Barry, which were both released in France three years later. By then Pola Negri's later version had reached the French screen and another comparison in critics of the time was inevitable, like Carmen or Romeo And Juliet earlier.
In 1918, she co-wrote the story of The Son of Buddha. She also did Salome. That year, Theda even became the subject of a cartoon short starring Mutt and Jeff called Meeting Theda Bara!
The next year saw the release of 2 films by Charles Brabin, Kathleen Mavourneen and La Belle Russe. Her next film, The Lure of Ambition, was the last one she made for Fox before her contract expired. She was denied a raise and decided to leave the studio. After a trip to Europe, she tried to find work at another studio but was unsuccessful until 1925 when she made a comeback with The Unchastened Woman directed by James Young. This last feature film still exists today.
Her last theatrical film was a comedy short called Madame Mystery co-directed by Stan Laurel in which she shared the screen with Oliver Hardy.
After an attempt on the stage, she retired. She had married Charles Brabin in 1921 and the two stayed together until Theda's death in 1955.
In my research, I found other French titles for her films:
- Un cavalier passa (A horseman went by, I don't know which film that is) was shown from November 7, 1919 at the Aubert Palace.
- Le démon de la jalousie (Demon of Jealousy, a title that could fit too many of her movies), was released on January 1920 in Rouen and on May 23, 1920 in Algiers. (probably in Paris some time in 1919).
- La DuBarry (Madame Du Barry, of course) released in Paris on February 6, 1920, just one week after Cleopatra.
- La ravageuse (Ravenous, which is the French title of Destruction) came out on April 15, 1920.
- La bête à misère (The Misery Beast) came out in Paris on July 30, 1920 and on March 3, 1921 in Algiers.
- Poppéa (French title of When a Woman Sins) came out on September 24, 1920 in Algiers.
- Salomé was released on January 14, 1921 and re-released on March 7, 1924. I even found a trace of the film as late as 1928 (January 25) in Madagascar.
- Apparently, La Reine des Césars (Cleopatra) was reissued on January 21, 1921 in Algiers, a rare occurrence in those days.
- Avant l'heure X (Before Time X, a war movie, possibly When Men Desire) was shown in Arcachon, France on February 18, 1922.
It is very difficult to associate a film with its title considering the French titles are usually completely different from the originals (Cleopatra being a good example). Also, the release dates are no help here considering that most of her films were made during World War I or right after, and were therefore almost all released in France in 1920 within a very short time bracket. Finally, no indication concerning the story, other actors or crew members are usually mentioned in the papers, cinema programs being mostly relegated to a mere column in the theater section of newspapers at the time.
If you wish to know more about this fascinating personality, I suggest you visit this website, and see the documentary The Woman With The Hungry Eyes.
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That's all for today folks!
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