Dangerous Curves (1929)

[SSO Admins]

I watched this 1929 Clara Bow talkie last night. Made just a couple of months after her sound debut in "The Wild Party," which I believe has been shown on TCM, it's as different from its stodgy predecessor as fudge from tuna casserole.

Bow was terrified of the talkies, but this movie shows that she had little reason to be. "Dangerous Curves" is not precode in the sense of "Call Her Savage" and "Hoopla," but it's an entertaining story with a delightful performance by Bow.

Clara plays Pat Delaney, a circus bareback rider who is in love with trapeze artist Larry Lee (Richard Arlen). Unfortunately, he's hooked up with Zara (Kay Francis, in her third movie), his partner in the act. Zara, unknown to Larry but plain as day to everyone else in the circus, is fooling around with Tony (David Newell).

When Clara makes Zara's infidelity known to Larry, he confronts her. She admits that she loves Tony, after which Larry falls off the wire during his act, then flees the circus. Clara pursues him to bring him back, and becomes his partner. Things go swell until Zara returns contrite, ready to replace Pat as Bow's partner both on and off the wire. When told that she's being replaced by the circus manager, Pat goes ballistic. "Aw, keep your shirt on," the manager tells her. "I won't!," Pat replies. Unfortunately she does.

I can't say enough good things about Bow's performance. She's simultaneously innocent and tough, sexy manipulative, although for once she's playing the good girl. The scene in the diner where she's attempting to restore Lee's confidence is fantastic -- I doubt there's a straight male alive who could keep from falling for her.

Kay Francis is fine as the evil Zara, although she's obviously still finding her way as an actress. One of the downsides of the movie is that it's easy to see why she prefers Tony -- Arlen portrays Larry as weak and easily manipulated. He mopes through much of the film, and it gets to be a little tiresome. Newell is just sort of there without much to do except look tall and handsome, presaging his long career as an extra.

A bit of interesting trivia -- according to David Stenn's biography of Clara, at one point her fear of the microphone overcame her to the point that she collapsed. Production supervisor Ernst Lubitsch, who adored Bow, came to the set and calmed her down. He managed to keep it out of the papers, but nothing could stop the gossip within the studio.

[MissGoddess]

Sad to say, I don't think I've ever seen a Clara Bow movie, though I've read so much about her I feel like I have! I hope TCM will give her a mini-marathon one day so I can play catch-up. Thank you for posting about this one. She and Gary Cooper had a hot thing going for a while, so I'd really like to see her onscreen chemistry with him.