Clara Bow Filmography

Academy Awards: Oscar's Best (Trailers)

Synopsis: Often trailers and coming attractions are of as much or more interest to viewers than the actual movie. Included here are some of the trailers and coming attractions seen in the Academy Award-winning Best Pictures from 1927's Wings to 1959's Ben Hur, also including The Bridge on the River Kwai, On Read More

Gaslight Follies

Synopsis: One of producer Joseph Levine's earliest projects, Gaslight Follies is a compilation of silent film footage narrated by Metropolitan Operan stalwart Milton Cross. Unlike the more respectful compilations of Robert Youngson (The Golden Age of Comedy, Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20s etc.), Follies Read More

Hoopla

Actors: Clara Bow, Preston S. Foster, Richard Cromwell, Herbert Mundin, James Gleason

Synopsis: Clara Bow, the saucy "It" girl of the silent screen, made her film farewell in the ragged musical drama Hoopla. Based on the stage play The Barker (previously filmed in 1927), the story takes place during the Chicago World's Fair of 1933. Bow plays Lou, a hootchy-kootchy dancer who is catapulted Read More

Call Her Savage

Actors: Clara Bow, Monroe Owsley, Gilbert Roland, Thelma Todd, Estelle Taylor

Synopsis: In this melodrama with strong racist overtones, Clara Bow attempts to revive her failing career by playing a free-spirited girl whose father is an American Indian and whose mother is Anglo Saxon. For some reason the girl doesn't know of her mixed heritage and constantly fights with her dad. The Read More

No Limit

Actors: Clara Bow, Dixie Lee, Stuart Erwin, Norman Foster, Harry Green

Synopsis: In this fluffy comedy, an innocent usherette falls for a customer whom she finally meets and eventually marries. Soon after the ceremony, she learns that he is a jewel thief about to go to jail. She then moves into a girlfriend's ultra-modern apartment that is really a front for gamblers. Again Read More

Kick in

Actors: James Murray, Clara Bow, Regis Toomey, Wynne Gibson, Julie Compton, Leslie Fenton

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1917 and 1922, Willard Mack's barnstorming stage melodrama Kick In was exhumed again in 1931 as a Clara Bow vehicle. The "It" girl plays Molly, the wealthy but long-suffering sister of young coke-head Charlie (Leslie Fenton). When ex-crook Chick Hewes (Regis Toomey) tries to Read More

Paramount on Parade

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Richard Arlen, Jean Arthur, Gary Cooper, Clara Bow, William Austin, Jack Oakie, George Bancroft

Synopsis: Considered the best of the all-star "studio" musicals of 1929 and 1930, Paramount on Parade utilized the talents of practically everyone on the Paramount Pictures payroll. Under the supervision of British musical-comedy favorite Elsie Janis, 11 top directors contributed to the project: Dorothy Arzner Read More

Love among the Millionaires

Actors: Clara Bow, Stanley Smith, Mitzi Green, Stuart Erwin

Synopsis: Clara Bow, the "It" girl of the silent screen, goes through the motions of the Cinderella yarn Love Among the Millionaires. A humble (but dazzlingly beautiful) waitress, Pepper Green (Bow) wins the heart of Jerry (Stanley Smith), the son of a wealthy railroad magnate Hamilton (Claude King). The Read More

True to the Navy

Actors: Clara Bow, Fredric March, Harry Green, Rex Bell, Eddie Fetherstone

Synopsis: Clara Bow's flat Brooklynese voice seems perfectly suited for the rowdy goings-on in True to the Navy. The "It" girl plays Ruby Nolan, owner of a drug store frequented by she-sick sailors. Each of the gobs assumes that he's the only man in Ruby's life, and when several of her boyfriends converge Read More

Her Wedding Night

Actors: Clara Bow, Ralph Forbes, Charlie Ruggles, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Geneva Mitchell

Synopsis: Clara Bow's career as one of Hollywood's liveliest leading ladies was drawing to a close when she made this early sound farce, one of her few talkies. Larry Charters (Ralph Forbes) is a highly successful songwriter who is growing weary of life in the public eye. Hoping for a break, Larry convinces Read More

Dangerous Curves

Actors: Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Kay Francis, David Newell

Synopsis: Circus life provides the framework of this drama that chronicles the love, life, and aspiration of a young circus waif. The aspiring star is learning to walk the high-wire with the young wire-walker she adores. He loves another, his partner, but she is untrue to him. As a result he is almost on Read More

The Saturday Night Kid

Actors: Clara Bow, James Hall, Jean Arthur, Charles Sellon, Ethel Wales

Synopsis: Clara Bow and her sister Jean Arthur are wisecracking department store employees with ever-roaming eyes for eligible bachelors--particularly those with fat bank accounts. Both girls fall for the same wealthy man (James Hall) but Bow temporarily loses out to Arthur, who is just a tad craftier and a Read More

The Wild Party

Actors: Clara Bow, Fredric March, Shirley O'Hara, Joyce Compton, Virginia Thomas

Synopsis: In this film, the irresponsible Stella Ames (Clara Bow) spends her college career attending parties rather than studying. However, when she ends up in the difficult class of the handsome, but stern, Professor Gil Gilmore (Fredrick March), she develops a crush on him which creates a series of Read More

Three Week-Ends

Actors: Clara Bow, Neil Hamilton, Harrison Ford, Julia Swayne Gordon, Jack Raymond

Synopsis: The Clara Bow vehicle Three Week Ends was based on a story by Elinor Glyn, the romance novelist who bestowed the "It Girl" title upon the saucer-eyed Bow. Seeing hero James Gordon (Neil Hamilton) driving around in an expensive, custom-built Hispano Suiza automobile, heroine Gladys O'Brien (Bow) Read More

Hula

Actors: Clara Bow, Clive Brook, Arnold Kent, Maude Truax

Synopsis: The tiny but voluptuous chassis of Clara Bow is given ample display in the exotic romance Hula. The story takes place in Hawaii, where pampered plantation-owner's daughter Hula Calhoun (Bow) occasionally takes a skinny-dip in the river. On one such occasion, Hula is obliged to save the life of Read More

Red Hair

Actors: Clara Bow, Lane Chandler, Lawrence Grant, Claude King, William Austin

Synopsis: It was romance novelist Elinor Glyn who dubbed Clara Bow the "It" girl, so it was hardly a surprise when Bow starred in this adaptation of Mme. Glyn'sThe Vicissitudes of Evangeline. The star plays Bubbles McCoy, a crafty manicurist who hopes to land a wealthy husband. She sets her sights on Read More

The Fleet's In

Actors: Clara Bow, James Hall, Jack Oakie, Eddie Dunn

Ladies of the Mob

Actors: Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Helen Lynch, Carl Gerard

Synopsis: The principal lady in Ladies of the Mob is jazz-baby Clara Bow. After her father is executed, Bow goes to heck in a handbasket, consorting with the riffiest raff of the underworld riff-raff. Upon falling in love with her partner in crime Richard Arlen, Bow vows to set him on the straight and Read More

It

Actors: Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin, Jacqueline Gadsden, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: Contrary to popular belief, Clara Bow was already Paramount's biggest box-office draw when she starred in this delightful rags-to-riches comedy. But It, from the fertile mind of bizarre best-selling author Elinor Glyn, remains perhaps the quintessential Bow picture. Not that the story of a poor Read More

Get Your Man

Actors: Clara Bow, Josef Swickard, Josephine Dunn

Synopsis: Only a few months earlier Clara Bow had been seen in Wings. The same with Charles "Buddy" Rogers -- in fact, his one film between Wings and this film was My Best Girl with future wife Mary Pickford. But apparently Paramount wasn't too concerned with keeping up this level of quality for its stars; Get Your Man Read More

Wings

Actors: Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen, Jobyna Ralston, Gary Cooper

Synopsis: Wings, the first feature film to win an Academy Award, tends to disappoint a little when seen today. Too much time is afforded the wheezy old plotline about two World War I aviators (Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen) in love with the same woman (Jobyna Ralston), while the comedy relief of El Brendel is Read More

Rough House Rosie

Actors: Clara Bow, Reed Howes, Arthur Houseman, Doris Hill, Douglas Gilmore

Synopsis: "Rough House Rosie" Reilly (Clara Bow) just can't seem to stay out of trouble. Hoping to become a Broadway actress, Rosie gets mixed up with rowdies and ends up in jail. Much the same thing happens when she tries to crash High Society. Eventually, Rosie finds her true niche in life when she falls Read More

Children of Divorce

Actors: Clara Bow, Esther Ralston, Gary Cooper, Norman Trevor

Synopsis: Kitty Flanders (Yvonne Pelletier), Jean Waddington and Ted Larrabee (Don Marion) are all "children of divorce" -- the two girls are left in a convent school by their mothers and Ted's upbringing is sketchy at best. When the three of them grow up, Ted (now played by Gary Cooper) falls deeply in Read More

Kid Boots

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Clara Bow, Billie Dove, Lawrence Gray, Natalie Kingston

Synopsis: Based on the musical comedy of the same name, Kid Boots was the first of two silent vehicles for irrepressible Ziegfeld Follies star Eddie "Banjo Eyes" Cantor. Old "Banjo Eyes" stars as a tailor's assistant named Kid Boots, who tries to save his pal Tom Sterling (Lawrence Gray) from the clutches Read More

Free Love

Actors: Clara Bow, Donald Keith, Raymond McKee, Hallam Cooley, Charles Hill Mailes

Synopsis: Clara Bow and Donald Keith were teamed in several low-budget romantic comedies of the 1920s, but only Bow made it to the big time. In Free Love, settlement-house clergyman James Crawford (Keith) does his best to reform several paroled convicts. One of these is Marie Anthony (Bow), who isn't as Read More

Two Can Play

Actors: George Fawcett, Allan Forrest, Clara Bow

Synopsis: In one of her last films before joining Paramount Pictures, Clara Bow stars as Dorothy Hamis, the niece of conservative millionaire John A. Hamis (George Fawcett). Dorothy is in love with "lounge lizard" James Radley (Allan Forrest) while Uncle John would prefer her to keep company with a man of Read More

Dancing Mothers

Actors: Alice Joyce, Conway Tearle, Clara Bow, Donald Keith, Dorothy Cumming

Synopsis: Believe it or not, Betty Bronson, who starred in the title role of Peter Pan, was the first choice to play jazz baby Kittens Westcourt, the part which eventually went to Clara Bow. Kittens was the second lead, but Bow turned her into a sympathetic character and stole the show from the film's star Read More

The Runaway

Actors: Clara Bow, Warner Baxter, William Powell, George Bancroft, Edythe Chapman

Synopsis: In one of her first Paramount vehicles, Clara Bow stars as Cynthia Meade, a movie actress on location in the hills of Tennessee. Convinced that she's accidentally killed her fiance Jack Harrison (William Powell), Cynthia escapes across the state border where she is given aid and shelter by Read More

Shadow of the Law

Actors: Clara Bow, Ralph Lewis, Stuart Holmes, William V. Mong

Synopsis: "It" girl Clara Bow gets to do some heavy emoting in Shadows of the Law. Arrested for a crime she didn't commit, poor Mary Mathews (Bow) serves a term at New York's Welfare Island. Upon her release, she is confronted by Baron Lirgard (Stuart Holmes), the man who framed her. The Baron convinces Read More

Mantrap

Actors: Ernest Torrence, Clara Bow, Percy Marmont, Eugene Pallette, Tom Kennedy

Synopsis: Clara Bow plays an inveterate flirt who impulsively marries much-older mountain man Ernest Torrence. When city lawyer Percy Marmont shows up on a camping trip, Bow can't help but lead the poor fellow on. He resists her advances, but finally succumbs, leading to disaster. Very typical of the silent Read More

Fascinating Youth

Actors: Ivy Harris, Mona Palma

Synopsis: Fascinating Youth was designed as a showcase for the winners of Paramount's Junior Star contest of 1926. Newcomer Charles "Buddy" Rogers heads the cast as Teddy Ward, the son of a wealthy hotelier (Ralph Lewis). Disturbed by Teddy's hedonistic lifestyle, Ward Sr. orders the boy to take over Read More

Best Bad Man

Actors: Tom Mix, Buster Gardner, Cyril Chadwick, Clara Bow, Tom Kennedy

Synopsis: Visiting his vast properties incognito, Hugh Nichols (Tom Mix) discovers that his land agent (Cyril Chadwick) is forcing Peggy Swain (Clara Bow) and her dad (Frank Beal) off their neighboring ranch. When decent-minded Nichols demands that the agent cease harassing the farmers, the nasty villain Read More

Eve's Lover

Actors: Irene Rich, Bert Lytell, Willard Louis

Synopsis: After cutting his teeth on Mack Sennett comedies, this drama became Roy Del Ruth's first serious film. Eve Burnside (Irene Rich) owns a successful steel factory and has no interest in love -- that is, until she meets Baron Maddox (Bert Lytell). What she doesn't realize is that Maddox has been sent Read More

Capital Punishment

Actors: Clara Bow, George Hackathorne, Elliott Dexter, Margaret Livingston, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: The drama opens with a prologue in which an innocent boy (Eddie Phillips) is sent to the electric chair and executed before the governor (Joseph Kilgour) can get through to save him. The actual story involves a contention by George Harrington (Elliott Dexter) that he can have an innocent man Read More

Scarlet West

Actors: Robert Edeson, Clara Bow, Johnnie Walker, Walter McGrail

Synopsis: Financed to a great extent by local businessmen and historical societies, this Colorado-lensed silent western once again portrayed a highly fictionalized nine-reel account of General George Armstrong Custer's last stand. Former serial hero Robert Frazer starred as a college-educated Native Read More

The Adventurous Sex

Actors: Clara Bow, Herbert Rawlinson, Earle Williams, Harry T. Morey, Mabel Beck

Synopsis: This overwrought program drama was given a racy title to promote the up-and-coming Clara Bow, but all it really did for her career was keep her face in the public eye. Patricia Webster (Bow) feels that she is being neglected by her boyfriend, Rodney Adams (Herbert Rawlinson), who spends more time Read More

My Lady of Whims

Actors: Clara Bow, Carmelita Geraghty, Francis McDonald, Donald Keith, Lee Moran

Synopsis: My Lady of Whims was one of the last of Clara Bow's vehicles for Arrow Productions before the actress' upward move to Paramount. Clara plays wealthy Prudence Severin, whose reckless, profligate behavior causes nothing but headaches for her father. A detective (Lee Moran) is hired to protect Read More

The Primrose Path

Actors: Clara Bow

Synopsis: Even though Clara Bow was close to achieving true stardom, she was still being cast in crass, low-budget fare. In fact, she has little to do in this overwrought melodrama -- Wallace MacDonald has the meaty role, and is billed above her. Bruce Armstrong (MacDonald) is quite wealthy. He is also a Read More

The Ancient Mariner

Actors: Clara Bow, Earle Williams, Leslie Fenton, Nigel de Brulier, Paul Panzer

Synopsis: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner had no love interest. The 1925 movie adaptation, titled simply The Ancient Mariner, stars Clara Bow, indicating that scenarist Eve Unsell did an extensive rewrite. Bow is in love with wastrelly Earle Williams, who is shanghaied Read More

The Keeper of the Bees

Actors: Robert W. Frazer, Josef Swickard, Martha Mattox, Clara Bow, Alyce Mills

Synopsis: Gene Stratton-Porter's 1875 novel was still very widely read 50 years later, when it was made into a motion picture. James MacFarlane (Robert Frazer) is a disabled war veteran who is told he has only a few months to live. He leaves the hospital and wanders the countryside until he meets and Read More

My Lady's Lips

Actors: Frank Keenan, Clara Bow, William Powell, Matthew Betz

Synopsis: Few leading ladies appeared in as many films in 1926 as the vivacious Clara Bow. In My Lady's Lips, Bow plays the feisty daughter of newspaper magnate Frank Keenan. And that's about all she does, since the bulk of the film concerns the trials and tribulations of female crook Alyce Mills. For the Read More

Parisian Love

Synopsis: In her pre-Paramount days, Clara Bow was shoved into some pretty dismal pictures. This aimless drama was one of the worst. Marie (Bow) and Armand (Donald Keith) are two lovers who belong to a band of Apaches (members of the Parisian underworld, not the Native Americans). When they believe that Read More

Lawful Cheaters

Actors: Clara Bow, David Kirby, Raymond McKee, Edward Hearn, George Cooper

Synopsis: Clara Bow is the sole redeeming factor of the cheaply produced melodrama Lawful Cheaters. Actually, that's not a fair assessment; though the film's storyline is slight and trite, it benefits immensely from its actual New York locations. Bow plays a good-time girl whose what-the-hell behavior lands Read More

Free to Love

Synopsis: Producer B. P. Schulberg put his top star, Clara Bow, through her paces in this silent melodrama of a girl (Clara of course) wrongfully convicted of a crime, who is eventually adopted by the judge (Charles Hill Mailes) presiding at her trial. Bland juvenile actor Donald Keith would support Bow Read More

Kiss Me Again

Actors: Marie Prevost, Monte Blue, John Roche, Clara Bow, Willard Louis

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch, the master of sophisticated comedy, directed this romantic silent romp starring the ill-fated Marie Prevost as LouLou, a married woman who develops an infatuation with a handsome musician. When LouLou asks her husband Gaston (Monte Blue) for a divorce, he shrewdly agrees without an Read More

The Plastic Age

Actors: Clara Bow, Donald Keith, Mary Alden, Henry B. Walthall, Gilbert Roland

Synopsis: Produced by Preferred Pictures on rental stages at FBO and on-location at Pomona College in Claremont, CA, The Plastic Age was Clara Bow's 15th and final release of 1925 and the comedy-drama that made her a major star. She plays Cynthia Day, the campus flirt whose "hotsy-totsy" lifestyle does not Read More

Empty Hearts

Synopsis: Milt Kimberlin (John Bowers) is a down-on-his luck horse owner, but Rosalie, a cabaret performer (the lively and engaging Clara Bow), doesn't care -- she turns down the fancy jewelry offered by oily Frank Gorman (John Miljan) for a wedding ring from Kimberlin. Even though his finances never Read More

Maytime

Actors: Ethel Shannon, Harrison Ford, William Norris, Clara Bow, Wallace MacDonald

Synopsis: This was the first time the sentimental Rida Johnson Young play was filmed (it was remade in 1937 as a Jeanette MacDonald/ Nelson Eddy vehicle). The wealthy Ottilie Van Zandt (Ethel Shannon) falls in love with Richard Wayne, the son of the family gardener (Harrison Ford). Although the pair swears Read More

Poisoned Paradise: The Forbidden Story of Monte Carlo

Synopsis: This mediocre romantic drama was vastly improved by the presence of a certain WAMPAS Baby Star (a popularity award given by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) named Clara Bow. After her foster mother wins at Monte Carlo, Margot LeBlanc (Bow) decides to try her hand at gambling. Read More

Helen's Babies

Synopsis: Long before Shirley Temple, Baby Peggy Montgomery was filmdom's favorite moppet. In Helen's Babies, Montgomery plays Toddie, the niece of pretentious author Harry (Edward Everett Horton). Considering himself an expert on child-rearing, Harry finds he knows next to nothing about kids when Toddie is Read More

Grit

Actors: Glenn Hunter, Helenka Adamowska, Roland Young, Osgood Perkins, Townsend Martin

Synopsis: F. Scott Fitzgerald was commissioned to write the story to this low budget crime drama for actor Glenn Hughes. In spite of this, the finished film was poor and did nothing for anyone's career -- except Hughes' co-star, a fresh young thing named Clara Bow. As she did in nearly all her early motion Read More

Black Lightning

Actors: Clara Bow, Harold Austin, Eddie Phillips, Joe Butterworth

Synopsis: Pictures starring dogs, especially German Shepherds, were quite popular in the early 1920s -- in addition to Strongheart and Rin-Tin-Tin, there was Thunder, who was reportedly decorated for his valor at Verdun during the World War. Like any canine actor, Thunder was bound to draw attention away Read More

Wine

Actors: Huntly Gordon, Robert Agnew, Walter Long, Forrest Stanley

Synopsis: Although Clara Bow was not yet a full-fledged star, she had already made a mark by mid-'20s. In this melodrama, said trade paper Motion Picture News, "Clara Bow is cast as the flapper, a role for which she has become quite famous on the screen." For once she is nearly upstaged by experienced Read More

This Woman

Actors: Irene Rich, Ricardo Cortez, Louise Fazenda, Frank Elliott, Creighton Hale

Synopsis: Irene Rich was one of Warner Bros.' new stars when she made this drama. Poverty-stricken singer Carol Drayton (Rich) attempts suicide, but she is saved by Rose (Louise Fazenda), a woman of the streets. They go to eat at a disreputable cafe where they are joined by the wealthy Gordon Duane (Frank Elliot Read More

Daughters of Pleasure

Actors: Marie Prevost, Wilfred Lucas, Edythe Chapman, Clara Bow, Monte Blue

Synopsis: In spite of its racy title, this society drama is really a down-to-earth look at the effects that sudden wealth has on a poor family. After striking oil, Mark Hadley, the father (a miscast Wilfred Lucas), decides that his wife (Edythe Chapman) is a bit on the drab side and goes in search of more Read More

Black Oxen

Actors: Corinne Griffith, Thomas S. Guise, Clara Bow, Alan Hale

Synopsis: When Madame Zatianny appears, seemingly from nowhere on the social scene, everyone is taken by her beauty. The older ones say she is the mirror image of Mary Ogden, who they had known 30 years before. Lee Clavering, a budding playwright (Conway Tearle), manages to meet Madame Zatianny and they Read More

Daring Years

Actors: Mildred Harris, Charles Emmett Mack, Mary Carr, Clara Bow

Synopsis: This independently made drama featured some notable cast members -- Charles Emmett Mack was a D.W. Griffith protégé (although he had the misfortune to earn this credit co-starring with Carol Dempster), Tyrone Power Sr. was a thespian who was father to future film star Tyrone Power, and Clara Bow Read More

The Enemies of Women

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Alma Rubens, William Collier, Jr., Pedro de Cordoba, Gladys Hulette

Synopsis: This epic production was the last film that producer and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst produced for Paramount (after that, his production company, Cosmopolitan, went over to Goldwyn, which later merged with MGM). It was based on a novel by Vicenti Blasco Ibanez, who also wrote The Four Read More

Beyond the Rainbow

Actors: Virginia Lee, Diana Allen, Jimmy Harrison

Synopsis: If her scenes had not ended up on the cutting-room floor, this uneven drama would have been the film debut of Clara Bow (later on, when she was a star, the scenes would be put back in and the picture re-released). How Bow was cut out in the first place is a mystery, since her role was pivotal to Read More

Down to the Sea in Ships

Actors: Raymond McKee, William Walcott, William Cavanaugh, Leigh Smith, Marguerite Courtot, Elizabeth Foley, Clara Bow

Synopsis: This whaling drama is most famous as the screen debut of Clara Bow (Bow had actually made one previous film, Beyond the Rainbow, but her scenes wound up on the cutting-room floor). Besides that, it is also solid entertainment, offering both the best (documentary-like scenes of a whale being Read More