Going really back into time -- to 1915, to be exact -- Theda Bara's "A Fool There Was" made a great deal of hay at movie box-offices, and it can now be purchased from Kino Video in a nice, 8/10, color-tinted print which has -- alas! -- little else than its tints to recommend it. Except, of course, curiosity value.
Miss Bara's chubby, sexless, matronly "vampire" wouldn't attract a fly, let alone a high-flying statesman.
The direction is not only dull but jerky. I thought at first these odd jumps near the end of nearly every scene were caused by print deterioration, but I now believe they were contrived either deliberately by the editor or in an inadvisable brainwave by the director, in a fruitless effort to speed up the extremely languid, slow-moving, all-too-predictable narrative.
Despite its great fame, the movie, alas, is virtually a total wash-out.
Miss Bara's chubby, sexless, matronly "vampire" wouldn't attract a fly, let alone a high-flying statesman.
The direction is not only dull but jerky. I thought at first these odd jumps near the end of nearly every scene were caused by print deterioration, but I now believe they were contrived either deliberately by the editor or in an inadvisable brainwave by the director, in a fruitless effort to speed up the extremely languid, slow-moving, all-too-predictable narrative.
Despite its great fame, the movie, alas, is virtually a total wash-out.