This film holds the honors for being the oldest film I have ever seen, although Tillie's Punctured Romance, which was released a year earlier and stars Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin and Marie Dressler is on my list.
I actually quite liked this film and would watch it again. Theda Bara is good, and I can watch her (seen all her surviving films other than East Lynne, which is not available to the public as far as I can tell), but Pola Negri stills holds the honors of being my favourite screen "vamp".
But back to Theda Bara. Her acting isn't as dated as some of her contemporaries (the aforementioned Mabel Normand would be one of them), but she kind of acts rings around the rest of the cast- they were mostly background noise. Maybe because we know Theda as "Oh, it's a shame all her films are lost! We must preserve EVERY SECOND OF THEDA WE HAVE LEFT." For the record, one of Theda Bara's contemporaries (who was a vampire at the exact same time as her), Valeska Suratt, has no surviving feature films. At all. Nada.
This film is very moralistic, but it is odd in that the vampire character doesn't seem to get any punishment for her sins. If the film were made even a decade later, she would probably get killed off, taught a lesson, or been forced to marry the guy, or have been driven out of town by the local folk.
There's no creative use of camera angles, no CGI, no sex, no blowing up stuff, no blood, no cussing, no sound, and it's in black-and-white, so my fellow young people will hate it and probably not want to watch it. But I think that you should, even for curiosity value.
Also, get a load of Theda's striped skirt.
I actually quite liked this film and would watch it again. Theda Bara is good, and I can watch her (seen all her surviving films other than East Lynne, which is not available to the public as far as I can tell), but Pola Negri stills holds the honors of being my favourite screen "vamp".
But back to Theda Bara. Her acting isn't as dated as some of her contemporaries (the aforementioned Mabel Normand would be one of them), but she kind of acts rings around the rest of the cast- they were mostly background noise. Maybe because we know Theda as "Oh, it's a shame all her films are lost! We must preserve EVERY SECOND OF THEDA WE HAVE LEFT." For the record, one of Theda Bara's contemporaries (who was a vampire at the exact same time as her), Valeska Suratt, has no surviving feature films. At all. Nada.
This film is very moralistic, but it is odd in that the vampire character doesn't seem to get any punishment for her sins. If the film were made even a decade later, she would probably get killed off, taught a lesson, or been forced to marry the guy, or have been driven out of town by the local folk.
There's no creative use of camera angles, no CGI, no sex, no blowing up stuff, no blood, no cussing, no sound, and it's in black-and-white, so my fellow young people will hate it and probably not want to watch it. But I think that you should, even for curiosity value.
Also, get a load of Theda's striped skirt.