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3.0 out of 5 stars
Clara Bow is poorly served., May 1, 2004
This review is from: Parisian Love [VHS] (VHS Tape)
As much as I admire Clara Bow, this film was a disappointment. Not that Ms. Bow has anything to do with that. Rather the direction and the technical aspects of the film are not up to her talents. The director (Louis Gasnier), for example, has no idea of how to shoot Ms. Bow. She possessed one of the most expressive faces in Hollywood history, and eyes that registered emotion so easily that the viewer is never in doubt as to her character's responses. And yet there is not a single close-up of Bow. In fact, nearly every scene is shot from middle to long distance, with the camera doing very little. I realize that the film was made in 1925, but that is no excuse for the lack of creativity Grasnier displays here. My complaint is also against the tinting, all in pastel. Generally I enjoy tinting, but here it adds little to the meaning or pleasure of the film, and it obscures much that black and white would have revealed. At times, it looks downright muddy. Finally, the film appears--at least to me--to have been shot slightly out of focus. There are no clean lines anywhere. Perhaps I underestimate the condition of the film when it was found and the limits of the work of restoration, but I was expecting much more than this. Clara Bow is her usual wonderful self in the film, and there are scenes that illustrate her persona perfectly--as when, dressed as a maid, she is reduced to fending off, with great spirit, the advances of the "gentlemen" at an upper class soiree. Her acting here also shows off her versatility: she moves faultlessly from playing an Apache dancer at a Paris club to a fine lady seeking vengeance on a man she perceives to be a cad--and there are many transformations in between. If everything else in the film had been up to her level, it would have been a true gem.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Another Mediocre Plot, December 13, 2006
This review is from: Parisian Love [VHS] (VHS Tape)
It is fun to see all of Clara Bow's movies, but since she was such a box office attraction, BP Schulberg put her into movies with lame plots simply because her popularity would make them a hit. Such is the case with Parisian Love, a mediocre story that relies on Bow's appeal to carry it. Bow plays a ruffian, a con artist who works at a nightclub to entertain tourists. Her boyfriend Armand (Donald Keith) and another friend also work as thieves on the side. On one job, Bow's friend is killed and Armand is wounded, left in the estate to be cared for by a rich benefactor. This man does all he can to turn Armand around and in the process away from Bow, so she plots revenge. Her plan? To marry this man and take all of his money. From here, everything goes along with few surprises and few comic sequences. It is such a short movie, that hardly anything interesting can happen expect bring to life a dull story.
Unfortunately, Schulberg not only took advantage of Bow's popularity at her expense, he also had no interest in preserving the films his studio made. This film was believed lost for several decades before it turned up intact, the only known copy. This is what we see here, a nice print with no major errors or signs of deterioration.
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