Customer Reviews

Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, With a Filmography

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Rather like its subject, this book has been unfairly overlooked. Comparisons with Eve Golden's more mainstream "Vamp", published simultaneously, do not entirely work in Golden's favour, however. Whilst Genini clearly lacks Golden's wit and incisive style, his research does fill in a few gaps and missing details, particularly about Bara's activities in her later years. The films themselves are documented well, in chronological order, and Genini has the rare virtue of refraining from discussing the quality of films he has not seen.

One might argue that Bara's personality comes over as somewhat vague, though I wonder if that is not the point. Bara is elusive, and one suspects she was a much better actress than has been credited. In the light of no concrete evidence, Genini skillfully draws the reader to their own conclusions.

Genini is clearly a Bara fan, but his book does not suffer for that. Throughout he remains objective and apart from a few trivial errors, mostly involving dates and chronolgy which are more attributable to the editing, this is an honourable effort. Those who have invested in Eve Golden's book would be well advised to read this to give a different and no less valid perspective.

Theda Bara was a silent screen icon whose meteoric career was over after five years. Mr. Genini has done an admirable job of digging up old magazine and newspaper articles about Ms. Bara. He even interviewed Bara's dentist. However, this book is not nearly as good as Eve Golden's VAMP book on Bara, which was printed the same year. This book has many great publicity photos, but few stills from her films. The book spends little time in describing Bara's films.

The author only viewed Bara's first starring film A FOOL THERE WAS (1914). He doesn't mention until nearly the end of the book that most of Bara's films are missing. However, he overlooked some of the few films that do survive. THE UNCHASTENED WOMAN (1925) has been available on the collector's market for years and EASY LYNNE is available in an archive. He also incorrectly states that MADAME MYSTERY (1926), her last film, is complete -- actually a one-reel albrigement is all that survives. [THE STAIN (1914) was discovered after this book was written].

If you are a big Theda Bara fan, by all means get this book. However, if you want to read an engrossing, well written book on Theda, try Eve Golden's VAMP first.