THEDA BARA: SILENT FILM STARLET

Born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, OH on July 29th, 1885, Theda Bara was the first monumental “man-eating”, femme fatale sex symbol in American cinema. Theda chose – or was assigned – her screen name because it was an anagram for “Arab Death” but the supposed appeal of that has always eluded me.

Bara at first sought success on the stage but managed few roles beyond a brief appearance in Act Two of Ferenc Molnar’s play The Devil on Broadway in 1908. Like many failed stage thespians, she turned to the comparatively new film industry, which in those days was centered on the east coast of the United States.

The future superstar had a walk-on role as a gangster’s moll in Pathe’s production The Stain (1914) and was then signed to a contract by William Fox of iconic Fox Studios. The fact that most of her movies are among the many lost silent films adds to Bara’s enduring mystique. 

A FOOL THERE WAS (1915) – Theda Bara embodied “the Vamp” character as surely as Douglas Fairbanks would later embody the swashbuckler. In this film based on Rudyard Kipling’s 1876 poem The Vampire, Bara portrayed a metaphorical vampire whose erotic appeal drove men wild.

In A Fool There Was, the vamping woman has already left in her wake a long line of ruined men who lost everything in their mad desire to keep her in their lives. The story depicts our starlet luring another wealthy man away from his wife and children, exhausting his money, then moving on to her next conquest.

This film had a Dialogue Board with Bara’s character saying “Kiss me, my fool” to her latest male victim, a line which was mistakenly quoted as “Kiss me, you fool” for decades. Because this movie was made before the 1930 Hays Code, Theda’s seductive and spiteful character was allowed to go unpunished for her actions in the storyline.

The success of A Fool There Was transcended the big screen and the movie became a cultural phenomenon in America and around the world. Theda eclipsed actress Alice Hollister, who had been the closest thing to a big screen vamp up to that time.

THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER (1915) – Bara starred as Giocanda Dianti, the title character from the 1899 play La Giocanda. When she is deserted by her lover Luigi, Giocanda pledges to use her beauty and wiles to hurt men the way she has been hurt. “From now on my heart is ice, my passion consuming fire. Let men beware.”

The seductive Dianti lives up to those words, and after destroying the lives and relationships of various men, she enthralls her new victim, sculptor Lucio Sattella (Paul Doucet). Lucio is thunderstruck by her beauty as he watches her dance along the beach in her “revealing” (for the time period) outfit.

He talks her into modeling for his sculpture of a sphinx, and an affair results, causing Lucio to abandon his wife and daughter. Later regretting his actions, the sculptor tries to kill himself but survives and is nursed back to health by his devoted wife Silvia.

Lucio then abandons her once again for the irresistible Giocanda, bringing ruin upon himself, his wife AND Theda Bara’s vamp character this time around. NOTE: This is NOT the same story as the opera La Giocanda.

EAST LYNNE (1916) – Our starlet portrayed Lady Isabel Carlisle in this film which exemplified one of the problems that would dog Theda Bara throughout her career. She was so typecast as a femme fatale that movies in which she portrayed other types of characters often fizzled at the box office.

In East Lynne, Bara as Isabel marries Lord Carlisle and bears him two children, but the scheming villain of the film, Captain Levison, lusts after Isabel. He convinces her that her husband is cheating on her with a woman named Barbara Hare.

A divorce is the result, but when our heroine runs off with Levison, she is involved in a railway accident and is presumed dead. In disguise, Isabel eventually returns to East Lynne (the Carlisle estate) and becomes the governess to her own children, all unknown to them.

Carlisle’s new wife Barbara resents the children and mistreats them, but Isabel champions them and looks out for them. Levison is eventually exposed as a murderer and is punished. Isabel dies of a heart attack after at last revealing her true identity to her children in the nursery.

CLEOPATRA (1917) – It was inevitable that Theda Bara would portray one of history’s most notorious women. Only part of this film has survived and the story is a mix of various accounts of Cleopatra’s activities.

Cleopatra is covertly brought to Julius Caesar (Fritz Leiber Sr.) wrapped in a carpet and seduces him. The pair plan to conquer the known world, but Caesar’s assassination prevents this. A plot to kill Cleopatra herself is formed within her own court, but Pharon (Albert Roscoe), the designated assassin, succumbs to his love for her instead.

Pharon even permits Cleopatra to loot the treasures from the tombs of his ancestors and she uses this wealth to travel to Rome, where she entices Marc Antony (Thurston Hall) to come with her back to Egypt. Their affair is interrupted when Antony is summoned back to Rome to marry Octavia (Genevieve Blinn).

Pining for Cleopatra, Marc Antony arranges for the queen to have her navy rendezvous with his own forces at Actium to oppose Rome, but the lovers are on the losing side of the resulting battle. They flee to Alexandria, where Octavius Caesar and his troops capture them.

Marc Antony dies in Cleopatra’s arms, and, before Octavius can have the Egyptian queen dragged behind his chariot, the lovesick Pharon smuggles an asp to our heroine, who uses it to kill herself.

DU BARRY (1917) – Theda portrayed Madame du Barry, the final Official Head Mistress of a king of France, in this case Louis XV. Jeanne de Becu, a former prostitute, beguiles the king to such a degree that an altered birth certificate and fake marriage are hastily provided for the enchantress, since only high-born married ladies qualified to be Head Concubine. (The position actually came with official living quarters and massive amounts of spending money.)

Rumors about Madame du Barry really being a commoner are widespread at court, and public tensions run high between Jeanne and King Louis XV’s wife Marie Antoinette. When the French Revolution breaks out, Bara as du Barry sees the writing on the wall and covertly arranges for the smuggling of much of her jewelry to England.

Our starlet is also depicted helping French royal fugitives escape to England, but before she can join them and her jewels across the English Channel, her page informs on her treasonous activities to the Committee of Public Safety. Madame du Barry is executed on the guillotine.

THE SHE-DEVIL (1918) – Theda Bara starred as the title character Lolette, a sexpot in a Spanish village where she enjoys leading on most of the local men. Traveling artist Maurice Taylor (Alan Roscoe) resists her charms during his brief stay in the village, causing Lolette to fixate on him.

Once Maurice returns to Paris, Lolette vamps bandit leader El Tigre into robbing the passengers of a carriage of all their money and jewels. After sleeping with the thief, our she-devil runs off with all the booty before he wakes up.

Lolette reaches Paris and hooks up with Maurice, successfully seducing him this time. The pair move in together and frequent the night clubs. When they attend a performance of Spanish dancers, the flamboyant Lolette jumps up on stage and scandalously outperforms all the other dancers, making her the toast of Paris.

Events land her and Maurice in the clutches of the angry El Tigre, but Lolette, not wanting Maurice to suffer because of her past duplicity, uses her beauty to outmaneuver the bandit. She and Maurice then make their escape. 

SALOME (1918) – Bara once more portrayed a legendary temptress in this film. The dancing beauty pursues King Herod and engineers the death of his chief rival.

Salome also helps cause the death of Herod’s wife, but falls for the wild dissident called John the Baptist. When Herod has John imprisoned, the dancer visits him in his cell and tries to seduce him but is rejected.

Furious, Salome entrances Herod with her next dance and as payment for pleasing the king she has him deliver her the head of John the Baptist. Salome goes on to be killed by Roman soldiers.

Church groups were outraged over the film’s alteration of the Biblical source material and objected to Theda Bara’s skimpy outfits and the sight of one of her bare breasts in one scene.

NOTE: Fatty Arbuckle in drag parodied Theda’s performance as Salome in his comedy short The Cook.

WHEN MEN DESIRE (1919) – A nice change of pace for a Theda Bara vehicle. This film is set during World War One, as Marie Lohr (Bara), an American citizen, was visiting her uncle in Germany when America entered the war.

While attempting to return to America, Marie is detained by the lustful Major von Rohn (G. Raymond Nye), who tries to use his power over her to make her sleep with him. Our heroine manages to keep him at a safe distance for a time.

Meanwhile, Marie’s true love, American aviator Robert Stedman (Fleming Ward) gets word to her that he has arrived in Europe to save her. Theda eventually adopts the identity and credentials of a slain female spy to aid in her escape.

Marie is stopped at the border with Switzerland by German soldiers who plan to gang-rape her, but Robert Stedman arrives in time to save the plucky woman, who personally kills Major von Rohn to complete her escape with her beloved pilot.

LURE OF AMBITION (1919) – The fortieth (!) and final film on Theda Bara’s contract with Fox Studios. The starlet played Olga Dolan, a poor young lady from the New York ghettos. While working as a stenographer at a hotel, she is loved and left by Cyril Ralston, a prominent Englishman.

Seeking revenge, Olga follows Ralston back to England and manages to become a stenographer to Cyril’s mother, Lady Constance Bromley. Though married, Ralston still desires Olga and tries to resume their love affair.

Olga rejects him and marries another of the many men courting her – the Duke of Rutledge (Thurlow Bergen). After this movie wrapped, Theda Bara went on a lengthy tour as the star of the play The Blue Flame, which made her very wealthy.

THE UNCHASTENED WOMAN (1925) – A seasoned Bara returned to the big screen in this adaptation of a stage play that had previously been filmed in 1918. Our superstar was now with Chadwick Pictures for this attempted comeback vehicle.

Theda starred as Caroline Knollys, a demure, faithful and devoted wife to wealthy Hubert Knollys (Wyndham Standing).

Just as she is about to inform Hubert that she is pregnant with their first child, she learns of his affair with his secretary (Eileen Percy).

Caroline keeps her pregnancy a secret and travels to Europe where she secretly gives birth to a son. High society circles are aware that the Knollys are estranged, but such intrigues are routine among their type, so not much is made of it.

The formerly retiring Caroline reinvents herself as a dazzling socialite throughout Europe, sporting a new wardrobe and a sexy, flirtatious persona. The jealous and humbled Hubert has since ended his affair with Emily and visits his wife, hoping for a reconciliation.

Caroline agrees and presents him with his son for a happy ending, despite how unlikely that may seem. Bara performs well in The Unchastened Woman, but it bombed at the box office.

After that disappointment, Theda co-starred with THE up-and-coming Oliver Hardy in a comedy short written and directed by Hardy’s future comedy partner Stan Laurel. That short – Madame Mystery (1926) – depicted her as a secret agent who has stolen an experimental gas weapon.

Though Bara was hailed for hilariously parodying her big screen vamp persona in Madame Mystery, she decided against becoming a comedienne and, after a brief appearance as herself in 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926), she retired from acting.

AMONG THE MANY OTHER FILMS STARRING THEDA BARA: 

ROMEO AND JULIET (1916) – Theda was less than successful as the virginal Juliet in another example of audiences preferring Bara in full vamp mode.

CARMEN (1915) – Theda portrayed the title character, a factory worker who uses her beauty to get what she wants from the men around her. The only man who seems to truly capture Carmen’s heart is Jose, who gives up his military career and leaves his beloved Micaela for her.

Eventually, Carmen tires of Jose and dumps him for the famous bullfighter Escamillo. Jose angrily stabs her to death before Escamillo’s latest bullfight. 

THE KREUTZER SONATA (1915) – Bara was once again cast as a wanton woman in this third screen adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy story. The film is among the many, many silent films which have been lost forever.

However, Tolstoy’s tale provided another ideal role for Theda, given the novella’s theme regarding men’s lust for women and the destructive behavior that results. Typical of its time, the story blames women for men’s wild desire, even stating that female clothing is designed to ignite men’s passions. (Just look at that scantily clad hussy at right, for instance.)

The main character marries for love, rather than in an arranged marriage, and Tolstoy’s story bizarrely presents arranged, loveless but “tranquil” marriages as superior to marriages based on love, which the narrative dismisses as mere lust.

A man’s wife has a scandalous affair with a seductive violinist, and the husband ultimately murders his wife in a fit of jealousy.

LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET (1915) – Another lost silent film. Theda Bara portrayed the title character, whose secret was that she was a bigamist.

At one point she murders her less affluent husband to further the coverup of her escapades.

THE TWO ORPHANS (1915) – Theda Bara and Jean Sothern starred in this earlier version of the Gish Sisters’ hit movie Orphans of the Storm. By this point the public expected Theda to portray nothing but vamps and, like other films in which she tried to escape that typecasting, The Two Orphans was not successful.

SIN (1915) – Yet another silent movie that has not survived, this potboiler of a film was advertised with the provocative tagline “Sin with Theda Bara.”

Our starlet portrays Rosa, an Italian peasant girl who deserts her honest fiance and runs away to America with a wealthy Italian gangster.

THE GALLEY SLAVE (1915) – This time out, Theda portrayed a long-suffering heroine who overcomes a series of unjust ordeals and, by persevering, finds happiness in the end.

As usual, audiences much preferred to see their favorite Hollywood goddess Theda Bara victimizing others rather than being victimized herself, and this lost film was not a hit.

CAMILLE (1917) – Based on the novel The Lady of the Camellias, this movie starred Theda as the title character Marguerite Gautier. She is a courtesan who is known as the Lady of the Camellias because when she is available for new clients she wears a white camellia. When she is temporarily spoken for she wears a red camellia.

The assorted soap opera developments of this well-known story cause a separation between her and her true love Armand Duvall, and end with our heroine’s death.  

THE VIXEN (1916) – As Elsie Drummond, the spoiled daughter of an admiral, Bara rejects all the officers and men in her family’s social circles, wanting a man who has youth, looks and money. Eventually, she meets Knowles Murray, the well to do, married boyfriend of her career girl sister Helen (Mary G. Martin).

As the resulting romantic triangle plays out, Knowles learns his wife is planning to dump him for another man, so he ends the marriage. Helen selflessly convinces the man to marry her undeserving sister Elsie. 

DESTRUCTION (1915) – In this lost movie, Theda stars as Fernande, a conniving beauty who gets herself married to an elderly tycoon, knowing he does not have long to live. Her ailing husband catches on to her plan but dies before he can change his will to cut her off.

Fernande now intends to manipulate and kill off her stepson in order to have the entire inheritance for herself.

THE CLEMENCEAU CASE (1915) – Theda Bara was given top billing as Iza in this film based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils.

Though this movie, too, is lost, the starlet’s top billing indicates that the story may have been reworked as a vehicle for Bara, making her the focus rather than the fallen man who turned to a life of crime after years of ostracism over his status as a bastard.

FOR A SIMILAR LOOK AT DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS’ SILENT SWASHBUCKLER MOVIES CLICK HERE.