She is making headlines once more for 2 causes: A misplaced silent movie of hers was lately found on the backside of a field of films that bought for $20 at an public sale in Nebraska. It will likely be proven at a movie pageant subsequent week.
Additionally, pop star Taylor Swift introduced on the Grammy Awards that she was releasing a brand new album. One of many tracks is called Clara Bow.
The lyrics of Swift’s track received’t be launched till April 19, however followers are already drawing comparisons between Swift and Bow, the Brooklyn-born silent movie actress, as each ladies discovered nice fame at an early age and now have been the topic of tabloid rumor feasts over their romantic relationships.
Bow was the primary on-screen actress to point out that ladies could lead on impartial lives, mentioned Bow biographer David Stenn.
“Her characters at all times had a profession, and for a era of girls who had by no means seen something like this earlier than, it modified their lives,” Stenn mentioned. “She felt actual to folks.”
Bow’s misplaced movie was present in October by filmmaker Gary Huggins, who had no concept he’d bought the silent film when he picked up a field of outdated reels for $20 at an public sale in Nebraska.
After he received dwelling, he sat down to look at one of many black-and-white silent film reels when he noticed a well-recognized face.
The girl featured within the 12-minute grasp print of “The Pill Pounder” had darkish curly hair and a cupid’s bow mouth, and he or she was sporting a cloche-style hat.
Huggins instantly acknowledged Bow.
“The Tablet Pounder” from 1923 options Bow when she was a youngster and never but well-known, in a small function because the girlfriend of an annoying pharmacy buyer.
The obscure clip discovered by Huggins is slated to premiere on the twenty seventh annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival on April 11 with one other Bow film, “Dancing Moms.”
“It’s going to be surreal watching a movie whose survival was unknown simply six months in the past,” mentioned Huggins, 56. “It’s such a captivating little comedy that I hope audiences in every single place will get an opportunity to see it.”
When Huggins watched “The Tablet Pounder” on his dwelling projector in Kansas Metropolis final 12 months, he mentioned he didn’t notice its significance. He ended up with the movie print solely as a result of he had to purchase a whole bin of 20 outdated reels to get a cartoon he’d noticed on the high of the stack.
Huggins mentioned he had pushed to Omaha on a hunch he may discover a number of outdated movies he may resell to pay for a visit to Japan this spring for a exhibiting of his personal movie, “Kick Me.”
An Omaha public sale home was clearing out a bunch of outdated gadgets acquired by a defunct native movie distributor, and Huggins thought $20 was a discount for a field of thriller reels.
“It was a horribly sizzling day, with the solar beating down on the parking zone the place 1000’s of reels had been being bought,” he mentioned. “By sheer probability, the can on the backside of my stack turned out to include ‘The Tablet Pounder.’”
Huggins had by no means heard of the movie, and he mentioned he couldn’t discover something about it on-line.
“It took me a number of weeks to appreciate what I’d discovered,” he mentioned. “I started to suspect that it is perhaps a misplaced movie.” Omaha’s 6 News first reported about his uncommon discovery final month.
One among Huggins’ associates talked about the discover to David Stenn, a author and producer from New York Metropolis who wrote a guide in regards to the legendary silent movie star, “Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild.”
“I requested Gary to ship me a fast movie seize — a magnification of one of many frames — and my eyes bulged,” mentioned Stenn. “I couldn’t imagine what I used to be seeing: 17-year-old Clara Bow, nonetheless unknown in her third movie, shot in a small studio in Queens.”
“I had at all times thought ‘The Tablet Pounder’ was a misplaced movie,” he mentioned. “Of all of the outdated tales I’ve found, this one is essentially the most miraculous. For it to point out up in such good situation is exceptional.”
Stenn purchased the brief movie from Huggins for an undisclosed worth and paid to have it restored so it might be proven on the massive display, 101 years after its unique premiere. Stenn is now on the hunt for eight minutes of the film that had been apparently lower from the print Huggins discovered.
“The unique would have been 20 minutes, so we’ve a bit greater than half,” Stenn mentioned. “I’ve been calling everybody I can consider to see if somebody may need purchased the remainder of it on the public sale in Omaha.”
Even with out these eight minutes, the movie reveals why Clara Bow would quickly change into essentially the most well-known feminine star of her day in Hollywood, he mentioned.
“She was the primary American intercourse image,” Stenn mentioned. “Girls wished to be her, and males wished to be along with her. She had a heat and vulnerability that was interesting to everybody.”
On the top of Bow’s fame, the U.S. inhabitants was 119 million, and about 80 million film tickets had been bought each week, he mentioned, noting that Bow made 57 movies.
“A couple of dozen of these had been speaking photos, after sound got here in,” Stenn mentioned, referring to the first movie to incorporate synchronized sound in 1927.
“Clara Bow had a nervous stammer and a Brooklyn accent, so she was nervous about it,” he mentioned. “Out of the blue, she felt inferior and insecure, and the expertise of working was very totally different.”
Bow grew up poor with a mom who suffered from psychological sickness. Her large break got here when she was 16 and received a film journal’s “fame and fortune” contest in 1921. By 1928 and 1929, she was the No. 1 field workplace star, Stenn mentioned, however her acting career ended in 1931 after she had an emotional breakdown. Bow was finally recognized with schizophrenia and lived in Los Angeles till her dying from a coronary heart assault in 1965 at age 60.
A couple of third of Bow’s movies are actually gone, Stenn mentioned. The Library of Congress estimates that about 70 percent of all silent movies have been misplaced as a result of time, improper storage and the flammable chemical compounds used to make them.
“Now we’ve an exquisite alternative to see Clara Bow in ‘The Tablet Pounder’ on the massive display,” Stenn mentioned. “She’s a genius on the extent of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and no one who’s respiration proper now would have seen this movie earlier than.”
Huggins mentioned he’s excited for opening night time in San Francisco.
“For me, essentially the most thrilling a part of each filmmaking and digging up forgotten movies is that second of first contact, when the viewers confronts one thing completely new,” he mentioned. “To be a really small a part of it, and add even only a footnote to the historical past of silent movie, is a dream come true.”