Clara Bow

Andrew Richter shares odd celebrity encounters from his years of working in hotels.

Explores the culture and characters of the Jazz Age through the decade's heroine, the flapper.

Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).

A documentary looking at the life, films, and troubled times of America's first sex symbol, screen actress Clara Bow, featuring interviews and archive footage. It takes a look at why she is considered the 'Lost Screen Goddess'.

The story of Swedish silent film actress Sigrid Holmquist's life (1899-1970), by using the silent film medium. It consists of already existing film clips from the 1910s and 20s. Sigrid is played by eight different stars from her era, and she also plays herself. Sigrid Holmquist was born in Borås, Sweden and her stubborn spirit led her to become a movie star in Scandinavia and Hollywood before retiring from the movies in 1926. An experimental film project.

A tribute to the legendary costume designer Edith Head during her years providing costumes for the films of Paramount studio which includes Sunset Boulevard, Roman Holiday and many others during her distinguished career that lasted more than six decades and earned her eight Academy Awards wins in between more than 30 nominations.

Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.

Based on the first centenary of the largest exporter of films in the world, that is Hollywood, is the story told by its protagonists, actors and writers and other people who made life in this business, interspersing images of famous movies.

An unprecedented anthology of never-before-told true stories by and about some of Hollywood's most interesting stars, legends, and wannabes, and takes readers inside Hollywood's inner sanctum to show how casting decisions are made, who makes them, and who has the final word.

Clara Bow: Discovering the 'It' Girl features scenes from 25 of her films, as well as interviews with family members and acquaintances.

From the A&E "Biography" series, a review of the birth, development and cinematic history of Betty Boop, the flapper cartoon character who has been a popular icon since the 1930s.

Her story is well-known — the lonely child who yearned for affection and approval which she finally seemed to find as Hollywood's greatest love goddess. But even though she scaled heights few could even dream of, she was one of the loneliest of stars.

In this one-hour special taped between March 9-17, 1981, Lily Tomlin and Dudley Moore join the Muppets in a tribute to film classics. Kermit the Frog hosts the program, which begins with an all-cast rendition of "Hey a Movie!" from The Great Muppet Caper.

Famous Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies

A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953.

This entry of Screen Snapshots travels to Las Vegas, Nevada, and Ralph Staub visits and talks to many Hollywood notables as they arrive at the famed gambling city and vacation at a dude-ranch resort and spa. Included among the resort guests are Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Hart, Yvonne De Carlo, Clara Bow and her husband, former western-movie star and current Nevada politician, Rex Bell.

The House That Shadows Built (1931) is a short feature, roughly 48 minutes long, from Paramount Pictures made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the studio's founding in 1912. It was a promotional film for exhibitors and never had a regular theatrical release and includes a brief history of Paramount, interviews with various actors, and clips from upcoming projects (some of which never came to fruition). The title comes from a biography of Paramount founder Adolph Zukor, The House That Shadows Built (1928), by William Henry Irwin.

A young waitress falls for the son of a railroad tycoon, and finds herself hobnobbing with the rich when he invites her to spend some time with he and his family in Palm Springs.

A high-spirited and short-tempered Texan woman storms her way through life until her luck runs out, forcing her to learn the error of her ways.

This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors

A sideshow bally girl sets out to seduce the naive son of the show's manager to get even with him for a friend that he jilted.

Ruby is a counter girl at the San Diego Soda Shop with a habit of being a girlfriend to Sailors stopping by. Things get a little zany when she sets her eyes on Bull's Eye McCoy a gunner who refuses to settle down.

An American movie star vacationing in France winds up married to someone she doesn't know.

Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.

A flapper shopgirl woos her rich boss with animal magnetism -- the captivating personal quality otherwise known as "it."

Playboy Teddy Ward wants to marry Jeannie King, an artist, but his father wants him to marry Loris Lane, but tells Teddy he can marry whom he pleases if he will make the Mountain Inn a profitable operation. Teddy agrees, and with the support of his friends arranges an ice-boat race with a $10,000 prize to the winner. A problem arises when his father refuses to pay such an amount. Teddy thinks one of his friends will win the race and refuse the prize, but champion racer "Duke" Slade shows up and Teddy knows he will take the money. Some movie stars show up and, while using their own names, are definitely not playing "Self" in this fictional film.

Facing poverty, Carol Drayton is prevented from suicide by Rose, a woman of the streets, who buys Carol a meal in a cafe of questionable reputation. The cafe is raided, and Carol is arrested and jailed on the false testimony of wealthy Gordon Duane. When she is released, Carol is again penniless until intoxicated Bobby Bleeker pays her to sing beneath the window of his sweetheart, Aline Sturdevant, where she is discovered by Stratini, a famous impresario. While studying with Stratini, Carol is blackmailed by the butler. Whitney Duane (Gordon's brother) falls in love with her but doubts her because of the gossip, and Carol incurs Aline's wrath by borrowing money from Bobby for Rose. Carol finally realizes her love for Stratini, who has remained loyal to her, and they are married.

John Warriner, facing financial ruin, accepts the proposal of a bootlegger, Benedict, to underwrite the business of illegal wine-selling. His daughter, Angela, takes up with the jazz set and is caught in a raid, at a cafe owned by Benedict. Her former sweetheart, Carl Graham, comes to the rescue and saves her from notoriety, while the family struggles back to its former respectability following Warriner's prison term.

A newspaper publisher finds out that his wild daughter has fallen in with a ring of gamblers. A reporter who has infiltrated the gang to get a story falls in love with the gang's female leader, and when the two are caught in a police raid, they find themselves in equal amounts of trouble.

This is not a Clara Bow vehicle, and yet it is clearly the aspect/asset of Clara Bow which elevates a fairly serious melodrama to a timeless and profound social statement. Opening the film on death row where the handsome youth awaits the chair, a stirring test of the legal system evolves after two elite types conspire to expose its inadequacies. Elite, jaded society lawyer Gordon Harrington fabricates a murder, implicating an entirely "hired" fall-guy, one Dan O'Connor, while the bored playboy-type hides away on a yacht until the points are proven and the legal system has been disgraced. Naturally, something goes wrong, the playboy really turns up murdered, and O'Connor is now the accused, imprisoned murderer scheduled to be hanged.

Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.

Aspiring author Prudence "Prue" Severn leaves her staid home for the wild life in New York's artistic Greenwich Village community. Her concerned family hires two thrill-seeking ex-doughboys, bow-tied Bartley "Bart" Greer and his trigger-happy buddy Lee, to look after her and, hopefully, persuade her to come home. They move into Prue's apartment building, where she lives with a sculptress pal. Although interested in Bart, Prue senses he is being paid to watch over her-- so she decides to elope with the handsome Rolf.

A young flapper tricks her childhood sweetheart into marrying her. He really loves another woman, but didn't marry her for fear the marriage would end in divorce, like his parents'. Complications ensue.

The daughter of a pineapple plantation owner in Hawaii sets her sights on a married English engineer.

A dead criminal's daughter falls in love with a small-time crook and tries to get him to reform before he winds up like her father.

Mayme and sister Janie are salesgirls in Ginsberg's Department Store. Mayme is in love with store clerk Bill, but Janie tries to steal him from her. Hazel, another salesgirl, is Jean Harlow's first credited role.

A salesman is helped out of a jam with an angry customer by a wealthy playboy. In return, he agrees to help the playboy get a divorce from his wife, only to find himself falling for the girlfriend of the customer who got him in trouble in the first place.

Wild girls at a college pay more attention to parties than their classes. But when one party girl, Stella Ames, goes too far at a local bar and gets in trouble, her professor has to rescue her. Gossip linking the two escalates until Stella proves she is decent by shielding an innocent girl and winning the professor's respect.

Being the story of the Morgans, a 19th-century Massachusetts whaling family, their tightly-knit Quaker community, and the dangerous adventures of an unwilling stowaway aboard one of the elder Morgan's harvest vessels.

Visiting his vast properties incognito, Hugh Nichols (Tom Mix) discovers that his land agent (Cyril Chadwick) is forcing Peggy Swain (Clara Bow) and her dad (Frank Beal) off their neighboring ranch. When decent-minded Nichols demands that the agent cease harassing the farmers, the nasty villain blows up the nearby dam, flooding the valley.

A Manhattan playboy falls for a mysterious European woman, whom he notices is an exact double for a famous socialite who disappeared at the turn of the century. At first he thinks it's just a coincidence, as the beautiful young woman he's romancing is much younger than the woman who vanished, who would be in her late 50s or early 60s by now. Soon, however, he begins to believe that maybe it's not such a coincidence after all.

A sexy young manicurist living with her older backwoodsman husband in a small Canadian town finds herself attracted to a young, rich and famous divorce lawyer who comes to town on vacation.

A bee keeper does his best to help the army. This film is lost.

Mary Brophy, a young woman who is unjustly jailed by a master crook whom she refuses to wed, later meets and falls in love with James Reynolds, a young man who becomes her protector. While Mary is in jail, her father falls under the evil influence of the criminal gang leader. At a reception the young woman’s father is shot by the man she refused to wed. He is brought to justice and her romance thereafter goes smoothly. A lost film.

Ottilie Van Zandt is forced to wed her cousin, despite her love for Richard Wayne, the gardener's son. Richard leaves, vowing to return a wealthy man and eligible suitor for her. He returns to find she has already married and, in turn, marries another girl on impulse. Two generations later, the grandchildren of Ottilie and Richard, who both have inherited their names as well, meet and develop a close friendship that culminates in the romance that their grandparents began but could not consummate years before.

A young woman is released from the reformatory where she was unjustly sent. She starts a new life with the help of a judge and an idealistic young minister. But a gang of criminals have made plans that could destroy the new life that she has built.

Cabaret dancer Suzie La Motte is in love with Jim Moran, a boxer, but she tempts a young man named John Browning. Moran and John get into a fight in which Moran accidentally shoots himself. Out of anger at John, Suzie accuses him of Moran's murder.

Dorothy Hammis (Bow), the daughter of wealthy financier John Hammis (Fawcett), has chosen as her fiance James Radley (Forrest), but her father disproves of him. He hires Robert McWorth (MacDonald), a former pilot, to discredit Radley by exposing indescretions in either his past or present contuct. McWorth leaves some valuable pearls for Radley to steal, but this plan fails, so he arranges for himself, Radley and Dorothy to become stranded on a desert island. Ultimately, Radley proves himself as the better man. After surviving both the elements and McWorth's scheming, he and Dorothy are married. This film is lost.

Cardelanche, the son of an Indian chief, returns from the East to find himself rejected by his own people. He is made captain of the U.S. army when he saves a detachment of cavalry from a group of renegade Indians, and further removes himself from his race when he develops a relationship with Miriam, the daughter of the Fort Remmington commandant. Lieutenant Parkman (Walker) gets into a fight with Cardelanche when Parkman is demoted, while General Custer's troops are slaughtered by Cardelanche's people. Cardelanche decides that his true allegiance is to his own race, and gives up Miriam to return to them.

A young man, who has vowed never to marry and doesn't particularly like children, is left in charge of his two very young nieces. At first they drive him to distraction, but then he begins to warm to them, and also to a beautiful young local girl.

Disguised as a boy, a young woman gets an inner-city street gang back on the straight and narrow path.

Austin Starfield has his greedy eye on a steel mill belonging to Eve Burnside. He persuades an impoverished count, Leon Molnar to marry Eve so he can then gain control of her fortune.

Two former childhood gang members, "Kid" Hart and Orchid McGonigle, attempt to go straight, despite pressure to continue their lives of lawlessness.

Gaston Fleury's wife, Loulou, takes a perfunctory interest in music but a deeper one in a musician named Maurice. A lost film.

A free-spirited young girl has three middle-aged admirers, each of whom sees her from a completely different perspective. Unknown to her, they also happen to be the guardians of a wealthy young man to whom she is attracted. Only a small fragment of this film survives.

A movie actress, mistakenly thinking she has killed a fellow actor, goes on the run and finds herself taken in by a Kentucky mountain family.

A young American girl in Paris falls in love with a handsome nobleman, but he is about to wed in an arranged marriage. She hatches a plan to overcome that obstacle and get her man.

A young bareback rider in a circus is in love with a trapeze artist, but he has two problems: he drinks too much and he's fallen under the spell of a "vamp" who's nothing but trouble for him.

Armand and Marie survive in the streets until charitable (and wealthy) scientist Pierre Marcel takes Armand in after a botched robbery. Marie, a fiery Apache, swears revenge on Marcel for taking her lover away from her.

Charlie is a small town druggist trying to wait on trade and play a social game of poker in the back room.