Call Her Savage | |
---|---|
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 by | Harold D. Schuster |
Music by | Peter Brunelli Arthur Lange |
Distributed by | Fox Film Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 82–92 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
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]
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.
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]
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]
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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.
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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 photographs 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.
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