Thursday, November 6, 2014

Jason goes to the Stanford Theatre for a Clara Bow double feature

Once again, catching up with what I saw a month and a half ago. The Stanford Theatre did a summer-long series of weekly silent films, and I only caught this one, a double feature of Clara Bow, the original "It" girl.

PARISIAN LOVE (1925): A tale of crime, romance, and betrayal among the street people of Paris. In particular, the violent street toughs known as "apache," which for odd reasons dating back to my college days I happen to know is pronounced a-POSH, not a-PATCH-ee, like the Native American tribe. But that's beside the point.

POISONED PARADISE (1924): The forbidden story of Monte Carlo. More theft and romance, as Margot LeBlac (Bow) loses all her money and becomes a housekeeper for struggling artist Hugh Kildair. The plot also involves an eccentric mathematician with a magic winning formula for gambling and thieves who want to steal his formula. And, in another odd connection to my schooling, it's based on a novel by Robert W. Service. I went to a high school in Anchorage, AK named after him (Poisoned Paradise, not being set in the frozen north, is somewhat of a departure for  "the Bard of the Yukon")

Dennis James rocked the Mighty Wurlitzer, of course, and I only regret I didn't see more of this series (and that I took so long to write this that I'm sure I forgot many details I should have included.)

Total Running Time: 159 minutes
My Total Minutes: 370,474

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