Call Her Savage

Last updated

Call Her Savage
Call Her Savage (1932) film poster.jpg
One sheet poster
Directed by John Francis Dillon
Written by Tiffany Thayer (novel)
Edwin J. Burke
Produced by Sam E. Rork
Starring Clara Bow
Gilbert Roland
Cinematography Lee Garmes
Edited byHarold D. Schuster
Music byPeter Brunelli
Arthur Lange
Distributed by Fox Film Corporation
Release date
  • November 24, 1932 (1932-11-24)
Running time
82–92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Call Her Savage is a 1932 pre-Code drama film directed by John Francis Dillon and starring Clara Bow. [1] The film was Bow's second-to-last film role. It is also one of the first portrayals of homosexuals on screen, including a scene in a gay bar. [2] [3] The film's copyright was renewed, and the film will enter the public domain in 2028. [lower-alpha 1]

Contents

Plot

A wild young woman, Nasa Springer, born and raised in Texas by well-to-do parents, rebels against her father. She is sent to school in Chicago, where her disruptive behavior marks her as a troublemaker. She marries a rich playboy, who then declares the marriage a ploy and abandons her. She is renounced by her father, who tells her he never wishes to see her again. She discovers she is pregnant and bears a child. Reduced to poverty, she moves into a boardinghouse with her infant, and struggles to pay for the baby's basic needs. Unaware that her grandfather in Texas has died and left her a $100,000 fortune, a desperate Nasa dresses up as a prostitute and goes out in the neighborhood hoping to earn some quick cash to purchase medicine for her child. While she is out, a drunken lout at the boardinghouse drops a match and accidentally sets the building on fire. Nasa's infant is killed in the blaze.

Upon learning that her mother is dying, she hurries home to Texas. There she learns that she is a "half-breed", half white and half Indian. The assertion is made that this explains why she had always been "untameable and wild." This knowledge of her lineage would supposedly allow her the possibility for happiness in the arms of a handsome young "half-breed" Indian named Moonglow, a longtime friend who has secretly loved her.

Cast

Reception

The Film Daily praised Bow's performance, writing "Looking like a million dollars, acting better than she ever did, and playing a role that requires her to pretty near run the gamut of feminine moods and modes, Clara Bow makes a whirlwind comeback." [5]

The film attracted an audience of over 900,000 when it was showcased in 42 first-run cities. [6]

Preservation status

The film was restored in 2012 by the Museum of Modern Art and premiered at the third annual Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Hollywood. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Bow</span> American actress (1905–1965)

Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josephine Hull</span> American stage and film actress

Marie Josephine Hull was an American stage and film actress who also was a director of plays. She had a successful 50-year career on stage while taking some of her better known roles to film. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Harvey (1950), a role she originally played on the Broadway stage. She was sometimes credited as Josephine Sherwood.

<i>It</i> (1927 film) 1927 film

It is a 1927 American silent film directed by Clarence G. Badger and Josef von Sternberg, and starring Clara Bow. It is based on the serialised novella of the same name, republished in "It" and Other Stories (1927), by Elinor Glyn, who adapted the story and appears in the film as herself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice White</span> American actress (1904–1983)

Alice White was an American film actress. Her career spanned late silent films and early sound films.

<i>Down to the Sea in Ships</i> (1922 film) 1922 movie by Elmer Clifton

Down to the Sea in Ships is a 1922 American silent romantic drama film about a 19th-century Massachusetts whaling family. Directed by Elmer Clifton, the film stars William Walcott, Marguerite Courtot, and Clara Bow. The film's title comes from Psalm 107, verses 23–24.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilbert Roland</span> American actor (1905–1994)

Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso, known professionally as Gilbert Roland, was a Mexican-born American film and television actor whose career spanned seven decades from the 1920s until the 1980s. He was twice nominated for the Golden Globe Award in 1952 and 1964 and inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peggy Shannon</span> American actress (1907–1941)

Peggy Shannon was an American actress. She appeared on the stage and screen of the 1920s and 1930s.

<i>Bombshell</i> (1933 film) 1933 film

Bombshell is a 1933 American pre-Code romantic screwball comedy film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan, C. Aubrey Smith, Mary Forbes and Franchot Tone. It is based on the unproduced play of the same name by Caroline Francke and Mack Crane, and was adapted for the screen by John Lee Mahin and Jules Furthman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luana Walters</span> American actress (1912–1963)

Luana Walters was an American motion picture actress from Los Angeles, California.

<i>Union Depot</i> (film) 1932 film

Union Depot is a 1932 American pre-Code melodrama film directed by Alfred E. Green for Warner Bros., starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joan Blondell, and based on an unpublished play by Joe Laurie Jr., Gene Fowler, and Douglas Durkin. The film, an ensemble piece for the studio's contract players, also features performances by Guy Kibbee, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, David Landau, and George Rosener. In the United Kingdom it was released under the title Gentleman for a Day.

<i>Child of Manhattan</i> (film) 1933 film

Child of Manhattan is a 1933 American pre-Code melodrama film based on the play Child of Manhattan by Preston Sturges, which was presented on Broadway in 1932. The film was directed by Edward Buzzell and written for the screen by Gertrude Purcell, and stars Nancy Carroll, star of musical comedies at Paramount, John Boles, and cowboy star Charles "Buck" Jones.

<i>Million Dollar Baby</i> (1941 film) 1941 film by Curtis Bernhardt

Million Dollar Baby is a 1941 American romantic comedy film directed by Curtis Bernhardt and starring Priscilla Lane, Jeffrey Lynn, Ronald Reagan, May Robson and Lee Patrick. The film was based on a short story by Leonard Spigelgass. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros.

<i>The Wild Party</i> (1929 film) 1929 film

The Wild Party is a 1929 American pre-Code film directed by Dorothy Arzner and starring Clara Bow and Fredric March. Released by Paramount Pictures, it is known as Bow's first talkie. It is the fifth film directed by Arzner and the earliest surviving film in her work as a director.

<i>Key to the City</i> (film) 1950 film by George Sidney

Key to the City is a 1950 American romantic comedy film starring Clark Gable and Loretta Young as mayors who meet in San Francisco, and despite their contrasting personalities and views, fall in love.

<i>Wine</i> (1924 film) 1924 film

Wine is a 1924 American silent melodrama film directed by Louis J. Gasnier, produced and released by Universal Pictures under their 'Jewel' banner. The film, which featured Clara Bow in her first starring role, is currently classified as lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Bow filmography</span>

Clara Bow (1905–1965) was a 16-year-old living in the New York City borough of Brooklyn when she won the 1921 nationwide "Fame and Fortune Contest" advertised in Motion Picture Magazine. After submitting their autobiography with a completed entry form clipped from the magazine, finalists were given multiple screen tests. As the winner, she was cast in a small role in the silent era film Beyond the Rainbow. Although her part was eventually edited out, the contest inspired her to pursue an acting career. She relocated to Los Angeles and signed with producer B.P. Schulberg. Her 1927 starring role in It, about an attractive and charismatic young woman, led the public to label Bow the "It girl". Over the next two decades, she would make more than 40 silent era films, the majority of them under contract to Paramount Pictures.

<i>The Runaway</i> (1926 film) 1926 film

The Runaway is a 1926 American silent melodrama film directed by William C. deMille and starring Clara Bow, Warner Baxter, William Powell, and George Bancroft. The cinematography was by Charles P. Boyle. The plot involves a movie star who erroneously assumes that she has murdered someone and flees to Kentucky.

<i>The Tenderfoot</i> (film) 1932 film

The Tenderfoot is a 1932 American Pre-Code comedy western film directed by Ray Enright and written by Earl Baldwin, Monty Banks and Arthur Caesar. The film stars Joe E. Brown and Ginger Rogers. The film was released by Warner Bros. on May 23, 1932. It is based on Richard Carle's 1903 play The Tenderfoot, and George S. Kaufman's 1925 play The Butter and Egg Man.

<i>Miracle on Main Street</i> 1939 American film

Miracle on Main Street is a 1939 American drama film directed by Steve Sekely and written by Frederick J. Jackson. The film stars Margo, Walter Abel, William Collier Sr., Jane Darwell, Lyle Talbot and Wynne Gibson. The film was released on December 19, 1939, by Columbia Pictures.

<i>The Texas Tornado</i> (1932 film) 1932 film

The Texas Tornado is a 1932 pre-Code American Western film directed by Oliver Drake and starring Lane Chandler, Doris Hill and Ben Corbett.

References

  1. Mordaunt Hall (November 25, 1932). "Clara Bow as a Termagant in a Film of a Novel by Tiffany Thayer -- The Night Mayor". The New York Times . Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  2. Jeffrey Friedman; Rob Epstein; Sharon Wood (August 17, 2012). The Art of Nonfiction Movie Making. ABC-CLIO. pp. 184–. ISBN   978-0-313-08453-9.
  3. Screened Out.
  4. Alan Gevinson, ed. (1997). American Film Institute Catalog. University of California Press. ISBN   9780520209640.
  5. "Clara Bow in 'Call Her Savage'". The Film Daily. November 26, 1932.
  6. "Bow Pulls 'Em In". The Film Daily. November 26, 1932.
  7. TCM
  1. Under R250206